Québec Bypassed Trump's Paris Agreement Decision to Fight Climate Change

To celebrate this step, VICE Impact, Formula E and The Climate Group organized an event called Velocity that gathered elected officials, business leaders, and activists to share their vision on how to accelerate climate action.

VICE impact met with a few of those officials, leaders, and activists to talk about the importance of Climate Week and EV100.

Today, in the first of three installments, we chat with David Heurtel, Quebec's Minister of Sustainable Development.

VICE Impact: Could you talk about your environmental action plan in Quebec?

David Heurtel My first priority was to further develop our cap and trade system and link it to California.

During COP 21 in Paris I heard people such as Al Gore and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praise Quebec's cap and trade system and our partnership with California. This shows that the efforts of subnational governments can inspire global leadership. In three years we have raised $1.8 billion through cap and trade that were reinvested through our climate change action plan into energy transition, clean jobs, and clean tech.

What do events like the climate week, and all these delegations coming together in New York, achieve?

We came to climate week to show that we can have the lowest unemployment rate and highest growth levels in 40 years while tackling climate change effectively.

Climate week takes place alongside the UN General Assembly and it's also a few weeks before COP. So we can set the tone of the conversation that will take place in Bonn for COP 23. During Climate Week we were able to push our negotiating position, through organizations like the Climate Group, with partnerships with California and other infra-national states around the world.

Quebec has signed agreements with Mexico and China, but states and provinces are leading the way. We've been working with places like Washington state, Oregon, New York, and Vermont.

With EV100, businesses are joining the effort going towards clean energy too, Why is it important to match curbing climate change with the business world?

EV 100 shows that energy transition is an economic opportunity. Most businesses are partners in the fight against climate change.

In Quebec, we developed an entire strategy of electrification, we invested hundreds of millions of dollars to finance charging stations at home and at work; we're investing in companies that develop electric school buses. Transportation now accounts for 40 percent of our emissions. It's the largest single source emissions, and so investing in public transport, investing in charging stations, investing in EV development, is a good thing, with a lot of research going into this, a lot of good paying jobs.

There is a domino effect. We've invested massively in developing both electric motors, electric vehicle technology. We adopted the first Zero-Emission-Vehicles (ZEV) mandate in Canada. The largest pension fund in Quebec recently invested $5 billion in setting up an electric train system. This electric train will connect, the north shore of Montreal, all the way to south shore and connect to the airport. This is unheard off. That investment is looking for returns. This is not a subsidy. This is gonna spur huge economic development because companies like Bombardier, that are in electric transportation will benefit from these policies.

Learn more about how to support the work of the Climate Group. If you want to support renewable energy in your hometown, support the Sierra Cub's Ready for 100 campaign.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.