Charest and the Quebec Govt. will go it alone on Kyoto

[Rovik]

Charest has come out and said that Quebec will support Kyoto even if Harper and the Conservatives flip-flop on Canada's agreement on Kyoto and break it.

Here is the link to the article in the Globe and Mail Quebec to go it alone on Kyoto, Charest says

Some quotes from that article:

"The Quebec government is resolutely committed to Kyoto and we intend to soon announce our policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Mr. Charest said Tuesday.

Mr. Charest said the policy favours conservation and renewable forms of energy such as hydro and wind power.

"With just the part which deals with saving energy, we'll succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 9.3 megatons in Quebec," he told reporters in Laval, north of Montreal.

Could this erode support for the Conservatives in Quebec?

[Riverwind]

Could this erode support for the Conservatives in Quebec?

I have always thought a Canada wide policy on Kyoto was a waste of time - the country is too large and diverse to have a national solution that would not end up pitting on region against the others. We should have encouraged the provinces to meet the targets on their own. Harper could make this part of his 'Made in Canada' solution.

[BHS]

Could this erode support for the Conservatives in Quebec?

I'm sorry, I don't see the connection. Why would a Liberal party policy in Quebec have negative consequences for the Federal Conservatives?

Let's look at the most likely outcome: Charest's policy will have negligable effect on Quebec's environmental conditions but measurable costs to the economy. Increased cost for no measurable increase in benefit is never a winning sales strategy, no matter how big the advertising campaign is. (True, they might try to spin this as a holier-than-thou programme to increase Quebecer self-esteem, but I doubt it will work.) This will not increase support for the Charest Liberals directly. At the very best it won't drag their polling numbers down.

So, if Charest impliments an environmental policy that won't benefit his own provincial party, the only way this could negatively impact the fortunes of the federal Conservatives in Quebec would be if their support was tied to the fortunes of the provincial Liberals in a general way, such that if the electorate gives up on the Liberals provincially they automatically give up on the Tories federally. Is that what you're suggesting?

The only other way to take your question is as a suggestion that Charest's policy might be successful and make the Conservatives look bad. Perhaps this might be the case in the short term, before the economic impact begins to take effect. If the federal Liberals can't make hay in Quebec during that honeymoon period it won't affect the Conservatives at all.

[Leafless]

Rovik

You wrote- " Could this erode support for the Conservatives in Quebec."

If I were Mr. Charest I would stay very quite concerning support for Kyoto.

Water vaper a greenhouse gas constitutes up to 70% a leader in greenhouse gases.

Another gas, carbon dioxide accounts for 9-26% of all greenhouse gases.

If I were Mr. Charest I would take his Quebec team of scientist up to James Bay hydro producing facilities and check out the large area of land mass that was flooded for the creation of that project and check out all that rotting submerged vegetation that is omitting unknown quanities of carbon dioxide.

For all we know Quebec could be a leader just in this one area of carbon dioxide production.

[Argus]

Let's look at the most likely outcome: Charest's policy will have negligable effect on Quebec's environmental conditions but measurable costs to the economy. Increased cost for no measurable increase in benefit is never a winning sales strategy, no matter how big the advertising campaign is. (True, they might try to spin this as a holier-than-thou programme to increase Quebecer self-esteem, but I doubt it will work.) This will not increase support for the Charest Liberals directly. At the very best it won't drag their polling numbers down.

Please. This is not about the environment. Kyoto has never been, for the Liberals, about the environment. Kyoto is about grand, but meaningless gestures to the herd. Jean Chretien grandly signed Kyoto, and then did absolutely nothing afterwards. Paul Martin did just as little. Now you can either believe the Liberals thought that Chretien was a god, and that his word would therefore reduce emissions just, well, because, or you can say that they never really had any intention of reducing emissions because they only cared about style and not substance. Canada pledged to reduce emissions by 2012, which no longer seems like quite as long a way off as it did when the accord was signed. And we have increased emissions by 35%. That means to meet our obligations we have to reduce emissions by 35% just to get back to the starting point where we were supposed to start reducing emissions. It can't be done, not in five and a half years, and not without spending far too many billions.

Jean Charest is a Liberal. That means that all he cares about, like Chretien, is the grand gesture to the herd. He will come out with a triumphant announcement that will make Quebec the greenest province in the country. But of course, it takes time for such things to actually begin to show any affect, and his government will probably go to the polls next year - before any result, good or bad, comes in. So it's about the gesture, the style, not the subtance. Presuming he gets elected he'll stop bothering about Kyoto.

[GreenWhiteandPink]

Acctually Jean Charest is a conservative.