The Council of Canadians Kent County chapter presented to the New Brunswick Select Committee on Climate Change earlier this week.
Global News reports, “The seven member committee was appointed by Premier Brian Gallant earlier this year and tasked with providing the government with a set of climate change recommendations after months of talks with experts and members of the public. …[It has now] completed public talks and will soon draft their recommendations to the province. …The committee will begin talks with First Nations leaders next week before beginning to draft their formal recommendations to the premier.”
The Global News video notes, “Environmentalists like The Council of Canadians have been using the forum to point out their concerns with government plans. They say the creation of the Energy East pipeline could be counter-productive to the province’s carbon reduction mandate. ‘You can’t invest in oil and gas and also be trying to be doing something about climate change’, [says Kent County chapter activist Ann Pohl].”
Pohl posted on Facebook, “We had fun today. Spoke about the need for tax incentives and assistance with conversion to renewables. Also govt has a Duty of Care to educate people about rising water (especially those with homes on shorelines) and how to cope with extreme weather events such as tornadoes that we are now seeing in NB. Focused a lot on links between forest policy and climate change, which a govt employee acknowledged on Weds is not YET being linked in govt policy!!! Thanked them for step in the right direction with moratorium on fracking.”
She adds, “Said if they want to avoid more strong united protection of the environment like what was seen in Kent County in 2013, they need to start wide-spread systemic climate protection action NOW. Spoke about how committed Council of Canadians and its 70 activist chapters are to advocating for STRONG climate protection policies and actions. We work with grassroots Peoples across the country on water protection and other crucial areas of the environment impacted by the climate change that is already happening. COC has taken position that anything more than 1.5 degree warming is unacceptable.”
The provincial committee’s report on climate change is expected to be completed by mid-October.
