The mayors of ten major Quebec cities are asking the next Quebec government to sign a “green pact” with them in order to counter climate change. The municipalities are asking for financial assistance of two billion dollars a year to support them in their ecological transition for the next five years.
Extreme weather events such as floods, landslides, heat waves and storms weigh heavily on city finances. They must upgrade their aging infrastructures such as aqueducts and sewers as well as water plants, counter the erosion of banks and protect road infrastructures.
“When we act urgently, it costs much more, up to ten times more expensive,” insisted the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante. She was accompanied Tuesday morning by her colleagues, including the mayors of Quebec, Laval, Longueuil, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières.
In Montreal, the 2018 heat wave led to the death of 66 people, a phenomenon accentuated by heat islands, recalled Valérie Plante, who insisted on the need to green the city. In Quebec, the City has built a biomethanation plant, but the operations of this infrastructure will cost it $20 to $25 million per year, explained Mayor Bruno Marchand. In Sherbrooke, drinking water is drawn from Lake Memphremagog, but the growing presence of the zebra mussel represents a phenomenon against which the City has little government assistance, underlined Mayor Évelyne Beaudin. And many cities have combined sewer lines that put significant pressure on water treatment plants and cause overflows.
In the context of the Quebec election campaign, the Union of Municipalities of Quebec (UMQ) commissioned a study from WSP and Ouranos which determined that the costs of climate change for cities reached two billion dollars per year.