The race for climate targets continues. The Parti Québécois (PQ) will propose this weekend to its members to adopt a goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 45% in 2030 compared to the level of 2010, has learned The duty.
The political formation intends to stick to the green targets set no later than mid-month in the Glasgow agreement. In practice, the PQ wants to reduce Quebec’s polluting emissions to 44 megatonnes of CO2 in 2030. In comparison, they hovered around 80 megatonnes in 2010.
“We are raising ambitions,” said the party’s environmental spokesperson, Sylvain Gaudreault, in an interview in his office at the National Assembly. He will suggest this weekend to frame this new threshold “in Quebec law”.
In the middle of the political convention season, René Lévesque’s party was the last to speak out on its green targets for the 2022 elections.
A week and a half ago, Québec solidaire (QS) stepped up its own by promising 55% reductions in emissions in 2030, compared to 1990. A few days later, it was the Liberal Party’s turn to revise its objectives : the official opposition wants to reduce Quebec’s carbon footprint by 45% in 2030, compared to 1990. As for the government, its sights are firmly on the current targets, to -37.5% in 2030.
“Outbid”
Sylvain Gaudreault agrees, the PQ is participating in a real “auction” by also toughening its reduction targets. “There is something absurd about overbidding like this: 37.5%, 40%, 45%, 55%, 65%, sold! He jokes. “As an MP, I don’t have a citizen of Jonquière who stops me in the street to tell me: Sylvain, 37.5% or 55%? He adds.
So, why take a position? Because the question would have arisen at one time or another, supports the elected PQ. “We had no choice,” he says.
PQ members are gathering this weekend to vote on a multitude of electoral issues. Sylvain Gaudreault believes that the proposed revision of the targets constitutes the middle ground and that it is based on global consensus.
“I didn’t want to get into a ‘raise the targets to raise the targets’ speech. By failing to reach our targets, we create cynicism and despair, ”he emphasizes.
The elected PQ shows the new targets of QS, unrealistic in his eyes. “It’s not possible to do it,” says Gaudreault.
“Raising your targets is not done on a napkin », He illustrates.
Last week, the current Minister of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change, Benoit Charette, also criticized QS’s new ambitions, arguing that the current objective was already difficult to achieve. “It will be a colossal challenge”, had meant the elected representative of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, which has for the moment identified half of the measures necessary to achieve its objectives.
Sylvain Gaudreault retorts that the repositioning of Quebec solidaire in no way exempts the Caquist government. “It’s the two extremes,” he says. The CAQ has an insufficient target, and the means to get there are not all identified. “
Game plan
In addition to addressing the party’s new targets, PQ activists will discuss a comprehensive list of environmental measures this week. “What matters is the means. It’s how to get there that will be the most important, ”says Sylvain Gaudreault.
The elected representative wants to file a precise “dashboard” of PQ environmental promises, which should allow the party to fulfill its green ambitions. This will succeed by the general elections, he assures us.
Already, the PQ is committed to setting up a carbon budget. The party also proposes to draw a billion dollars a year from the Generations Fund in order to launch a “just transition” fund, which would support workers in Quebec’s energy transition.
At its congress, the political party also wishes to put forward “strong principles” in the area of public transport. Sylvain Gaudreault does not detail the intentions of his party. “Public transit is not just in the regions,” he is content to say.
The PQ congress will stretch over a single day, Saturday, in Trois-Rivières.