Posted at 7:58 p.m.
Yes, but…
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois noted this by presenting his party’s climate plan for 2030 on Sunday: he received a certificate of scientific validity and technical-economic modeling from eight experts in climate science.
The Press spoke with one of them, Jérôme Dupras, professor at the University of Quebec in Outaouais, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Ecological Economics and… yes, the bassist of the Cowboys Fringants.
Satisfied with the process? Yes, said Mr. Dupras in a telephone interview.
“We approached several scientists with complementary expertise,” he says. We had access, under embargo, to the modeling approaches, projections, budgets, etc., of the party. We had presentations, we answered our questions. The points raised by the scientists were internalized in the final version. »
Mr. Dupras explains that the calculation models on the reduction of the first percentage points of GHGs unite all opinions. It’s technically proven. But beyond a certain threshold, you have to be more daring to eliminate each additional percentage point of GHGs and therefore propose solutions and initiatives to achieve this.
What he sees in the QS plan which proposes to act as much on governance as in transport, buildings, industries, the agricultural world and waste suits him. “My opinion, it’s very personal and it can be debated, is that the hypotheses put forward here are totally justified and have the potential to come true. »
For him, we must be all the more daring since, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world must reduce its GHG emissions by almost 50% by 2030. This in order to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“And 2030 is just one step,” recalls Mr. Dupras. In 2050, we must not only be carbon neutral but carbon negative. Our societies will need to put in place technologies to remove GHGs from the atmosphere. »
In short, the longer we delay, the more catastrophic the consequences will be.
PHOTO DENIS GERMAIN, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
The parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and the party’s candidate in Verdun, Alejandra Zaga Mendez
Do we have enough time?
Holder of the HEC Montréal Energy Sector Management Chair, Pierre-Olivier Pineau believes that the QS climate plan is “among the most documented and most serious that I have seen”. He describes it as very rigorous and believes that QS, like the Parti Québécois (whose reduction target for 2030 is 45%) have done their homework.
But achieving a 55% reduction in GHGs in eight years is a “very ambitious” project, he adds.
In addition, QS avoids explaining directly to voters that they will have to learn to live with (read: impose themselves) significant direct constraints, particularly on car use. “We are proposing essential alternatives such as the development of the rail network, public transport, car-sharing and bike-sharing,” he observes. But people remain comfortable in their vehicles. […] I understand that, for electoral purposes, we are not talking about constraints. But with the little time at our disposal, without constraints, it is difficult to imagine achieving our goals. »
Same thing with the agricultural sector. Mr. Pineau notes that QS, like the PQ, proposes several initiatives but avoids the delicate question of meats.
“In the agricultural sector, both the PQ and QS refuse to say that animal protein is the problem,” he said. However, it has been established by science that this production is very GHG-producing. We avoid talking about it so as not to offend voters who like to put bacon in their hamburgers. However, if we want to be serious about climate change, we will have to put less bacon in fewer hamburgers. »
Unlike Mr. Dupras, Mr. Pineau is not one of the eight experts named in the QS plan. Both are also part of the advisory committee on climate change, an independent body of 12 experts responsible for advising the Quebec Ministry of the Environment.