The student movement is undertaking a new battle: it wants to stop Canada’s hydrocarbon exports.
A coalition that had already actively campaigned against the LNG-Quebec gas terminal project in Saguenay now wants to put pressure on federal elected officials.
Student associations brandish the UN report published this week which warns that the States of the world have three years to cap their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), otherwise the average rise in temperatures on the planet cannot be limited to 1.5 degrees and more and more extreme weather events will follow.
“We have three years left to avoid a point of no return in global warming, climate catastrophe is at our doorstep,” said coalition spokesman Simon Guiroy in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Grouped together in the Student Climate Action Front (FÉDAC), the associations representing 330,000 students are therefore demanding that Canada put an end to its gas and oil exports.
Mr. Guiroy recalled that in 2019, Canada emitted 730 megatonnes of hydrocarbon-related GHGs, but exported 954 megatonnes of hydrocarbon-related GHGs, which therefore increases emissions everywhere on the planet.
“Canada is primarily a fossil fuel exporting country, so its real contribution to the climate crisis is in its exports,” the spokesperson said.
The federal government must therefore also include in its GHG assessment the emissions that it contributes to generating elsewhere, the coalition believes.
However, in the context of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, many countries, particularly in Europe, are seeking to free themselves from their dependence on Russian oil and could be interested in Canadian supplies.
However, the student movement dismisses even this alternative scenario.
“The solution to avoid dependence on Russian hydrocarbons is not other hydrocarbons, it is to go into the energy transition”, argued the spokesperson. Countries in Europe are engaged in the transition, he pleaded.
The FÉDAC is also calling for the abandonment of the controversial Bay du Nord oil development project off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, which has just been approved by the federal government.
“It doesn’t make sense,” commented Mr. Guiroy. We must abandon all new projects that would lead to an increase in production. »