New Brunswick minister backs Energy East at climate talks

Pipelines and the controversial Energy East project remained a hot topic on Friday as Canadian environment ministers sat down for the first time in a decade for a comprehensive discussion on tackling climate change.

The climate talks are underway after a week in which the Canadian government pledged to toughen pipeline safety in the wake of a critical report showing that the federal regulator, the National Energy Board, was struggling to enforce safety rules.

Although the ministers collectively recognized they had more work to do, with projections showing Canada's overall emissions are slated to grow beyond existing targets for 2020 and 2030, they offered few details about progress in their discussions.

"The data is clear and confirms that more needs to be done to close the gap between where we are today and where we need to be," said federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna after the meeting.

The ministers said they had concluded two days of productive talks, agreeing that economic and environmental issues must be addressed together to reduce emissions and meet challenges posed by climate change. McKenna also said that Canada needs to embrace economic opportunities in the growing clean energy sector.

"Canada needs to be part of it," said McKenna. "We feel it is crucial to reduce emissions while positioning Canada to take advantage of global opportunities to grow, diversify our economies, access markets, and create jobs."

New Brunswick's environment minister Brian Kenny said that his government was backing TransCanada Corp's Energy East project while remaining committed to a greener future.

“It’s going to take some time to be able to wean off of fossil fuels and to develop new technologies and that’s not going to happen overnight,” Kenny told National Observer on Friday in Ottawa.

He said that crude oil is currently brought into eastern Canada by train, but that his province had invested in rail infrastructure upgrades such as new track bedding to prevent another Lac Megantic-type disaster from occurring.

If Energy East is built as planned, up to 1.1 million barrels of oil per day would be pumped from Saskatchewan and Alberta across Canada to eastern refineries and a sea terminal in New Brunswick. TransCanada says that up to 14,000 jobs will be created if it is built.

“I know that there are safeguards being put in place,” said Kenny.

While continuing to support Energy East, Kenny looked towards a greener future for his province, saying that Canada’s environment ministers were “united,” in tackling global warming after the Paris climate talks wrapped up last month.

“We’re putting together a new renewables program to have municipalities and community groups to be able to produce green energy, at the same time look at retrofits with our commercial buildings, all of our buildings that are in the province, [and] finding ways to improve our transport systems. There’s a slew of things that we’re doing now as a new government to tackle climate change and at the same time help create jobs,” said Kenny.

Ontario Environment Minister Glen Murray warned also that extreme weather caused by climate change would take a toll on Canada.

“We’re going to have to also cope now as Canadians really for the first time over the next two or three decades with the high cost of disruptive weather and major climate events and that’s really the critical priority right now because inaction right now is really the worst possible thing,” said Murray.

But he also pointed to an economic expansion worth trillions driven by clean technology, including electric vehicles and technology to better manage water, to name but a few advances.

He welcomed the “enthusiastic,” atmosphere of the climate meetings and described them as a “cathartic release,” after the Harper government’s approach to climate change.

“We could use the word climate change. The previous government pulled the word climate change out of every discussion,” said Murray.

Under the former Conservative government, Murray said that each province was left to devise its own climate policies. In Ontario, that meant phasing out coal power and reducing emissions six per cent below 1990 levels, according to Murray.

However, Ontario is now joining forces with Quebec, Manitoba, and California to form North America's largest carbon cap and trade network. Other jurisdictions including New York State and Mexico have also expressed interest, according to Quebec's environment minister David Heurtel.

"We're looking for federal alignment with provinces like Quebec who have already put forth ambitious reduction targets and also have strategies and plans in place," Heurtel told National Observer. "We have the most ambitious [greenhouse gas emissions] reduction target for 2030 in Canada with 37.5 [per cent]."

Quebec is committed to upping its 2030 reduction target will be upped to 80-95 per cent by 2050, according to Heurtel.

But Murray hinted that the new federal government would need to figure out how much money to invest to help the 13 different provincial and territorial climate policies integrate into a single national program aimed at tackling greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

However, Murray and his colleagues may yet have a long way to go, as documents obtained by the CBC reveal that greenhouse gas emissions are climbing from 726 MT in 2013 to a projected 766 MT by 2020. If oil prices pick up, the estimated 2020 emissions could rise as high as 786 MT.