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Environment group says N.S. wasting time in meeting greenhouse gas targets |
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Written by Keith Doucette, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
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HALIFAX - An environmental group warned that time is wasting if Nova Scotia is to meet its reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions.
Members of the Halifax-based Ecology Action Centre strung dozens of life-jackets across an iron fence in front of the legislature Wednesday to illustrate their point as a progress report on the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act was released.
The wide-ranging act set a greenhouse gas reduction target of 10 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 - but the Conservative government said Wednesday that emissions have increased to 16 per cent above 1990 levels as of 2005.
Environment Minister Mark Parent said the government understands that hitting the target will be a "huge challenge" but it intends to meet it.
"Currently we'd have to lower it by 26 per cent and if we allow business to continue as usual, by 2020 it would be about 36 per cent," Parent told reporters.
But Brendan Haley of the Ecology Action Centre said the province had made little progress on climate change in the year since it introduced the act.
He said opportunities were missed in the recent budget to implement energy efficiency measures for fuel oil and to invest heavily in sustainable transportation such as public transit.
"And that means we might be losing another year when we really should be ramping up this infrastructure that we're going to need for both rising temperatures and rising energy costs."
Haley said to meet the 10 per cent goal, which he sees as a minimum target, there has to be clear restrictions placed on industries that produce carbon emissions.
But the province still hasn't decided whether it will adopt intensity-based targets that will allow industry to pollute more if production increases, or opt for a cap-and-trade system that offers incentives for reducing emissions.
Parent said the decision would be made when the province introduces its plan in the fall.
One of the largest problems facing Nova Scotia in cutting its emissions is the province's reliance on coal-fired power plants.
Parent said meeting the province's emissions target would require importing energy from Newfoundland and Labrador's Churchill Falls hydro-electric project and from New Brunswick's Point Lepreau nuclear facility.
"Absolutely, that's one of the things that we are looking at ... because with renewable energy, the wind and tidal that we are developing, tidal is variable and wind is intermittent," said Parent.
The report also charted progress on other government environmental initiatives, with mixed results.
The province wants all municipalities to meet provincial standards for drinking water by the end of the year, but Parent said it appears 85 per cent would meet the guidelines by year's end.
Another target requires the government to legally protect 12 per cent of the province's land by 2015. Parent said the figure had increased in the last year from 8.2 per cent to 8.7 per cent.
The exercise left opposition critics voicing skepticism about the province's ability to deliver on an act that's stated goal is to produce one of the cleanest and most sustainable environments in the world.
"The progress report essentially tells us they have plans, they have roundtables, but they don't have hard control measures aimed at businesses and individuals and that's what's necessary," said New Democrat Howard Epstein.
Liberal Keith Cowell said the only thing the government had done to date is talk a good game.
"There's no concrete action happening ... they are talking about things happening, but they are really not making them happen," he said.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 14 May 2008 )
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