We asked questions by email from August to September 2022 (see below).
The parties were notified that we would publish their answer(s).
Political parties are listed according to their responses (answers are below). A red ball 🔴 indicates that we received no answer to our questions, an orange ball 🟠shows that a party minister or other party representative provided a partial answer and a green ball 🟢 indicates answers were given to our questionnaire.
🔴 CD&V
🔴 Défi
🔴 MR
🔴 N-VA
🔴 ptb
🔴 Vlaams Belang
🔴 Vooruit
🟠Open Vld
🟢 ECOLO
🟢 Les Engagés
🟢 PS
Here is the content of the letter sent to the political parties and figures who reacted to the publication of our open letter:
We thank you for your response, but in view of the current climate and environmental emergency, we would like to come back to you because the current policies are clearly insufficient. A recent report shows that in the first quarter of this year, greenhouse gas emissions have increased in the European Union. The assessment of trends in Belgium by the National Climate Commission (2021) does not bode well either (see attached file). We are clearly not going in the right direction!
We would therefore like to ask you the following questions:
1) Have you read the summary of the 3rd part of the 6th IPCC report, intended for decision-makers? (published on 4th April 2022)
Is a working group in your party/firm working on this topic with the aim of achieving significant results in less than 2 years?
2) What role do the IPCC reports play in your policy decisions?
3) Do you recognise/accept that the overriding objective – reaching peak greenhouse gas emissions – must be achieved within the next 2 years at the latest?
4) Do you consider that the actions taken to mitigate climate change are sufficient and fast enough?
5) What are the obstacles to implementing actions to drastically reduce our use of fossil resources in order to limit greenhouse gas emissions?
Thank you in advance for your answers.
We would like to inform you that this email has also been sent to all relevant party presidents and ministers.
We would also like to inform you that the acknowledgements and responses received will be made public by Monday 7 November, the opening day of COP 27.
Yours sincerely,
on behalf of the Pakman Collective,
Samuel Melchior
Sébastien Erkens
Stéphane Vanden Eede
Bernard Lambeau
Céline Bertrand
The Pakman Collective (in reference to the small and voracious video-game character that devours everything in his path) is a group of citizens who have joined forces to denounce climate denial and to encourage all levels of power to take the necessary decisions quickly and democratically.
Responses received:
The other parties have not responded so far or have only sent an acknowledgement of receipt without follow-up by 7th November 2022. They were told that after this date their responses would be made public.