The following is an excerpt from an article reporting on the provincial and territorial climate change forum in Quebec City. To read the full article Telegraph Journal April 15, 2015 click here.
New Brunswick Green party Leader David Coon was invited by Gallant to attend the forum and he was optimistic about the enthusiasm for change he saw among the premiers and leaders.
“I haven’t felt this sense of energy or momentum from provincial premiers since 2005, when everyone came together at the climate change summit in Montreal,” Coon said.
“With the decision of Ontario to go to cap-and-trade with Quebec, that has broken a log jam nationally, and I think you will see a lot of things roll out in terms of the transition to renewable fuels and energy efficiency.”
But the Green party leader said the message from the forum was not positive for the proposed Energy East pipeline to bring Alberta crude from the oilsands to the port of Saint John, a project the Gallant government strongly supports.
“There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance around this,” Coon said.
“The pipeline will enable an expansion of the tar sands. The increased emissions from Alberta would amount to about 32 million tonnes from production of the extra bitumen needed to fill the pipeline. That would wipe out half the progress that all the provinces outside Alberta and Saskatchewan have made in the past decade in reducing their emissions. Building the Energy East pipeline is contrary to conquering climate change.”
To read the full article Telegraph Journal April 15, 2015 click here.