Member’s Statement: Energy East

Mr. Speaker, new research was published in the Journal Nature, which provides numbers on the quantities and locations of fossil fuels that must remain in the ground avoid dangerous climate change – to keep within the 2C temperature limit that Canada and the rest of world have agreed to avoid.  This is the first peer reviewed analysis to identify which existing reserves cannot be burned to keep us safe.

If we follow business as usual, the world is heading for a catastrophic 5C of warming.  The study published in Nature concluded that production at Canada’s oil sands must fall to “negligible” levels after 2020.  As the title of Naomi Klein’s book suggests, this changes everything.

Building the Energy East pipeline clearly is a non-starter, unless of course we deny climate change. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Member’s Statement – Energy East
David Coon, MLA, Fredericton South
Leader of the Third Party
Thursday, February 12, 2015