HALIFAX—The Nova Scotia NDP are pushing the government to create a plan for transitioning to a green economy.

Tabled at Province House on Tuesday, the Green Jobs Act proposes that a task force of stakeholders decide how to “transform the provincial economy into a sustainable economy with maximized employment opportunities.”

NDP leader Gary Burrill said the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources will “define an economic era,” and a plan is necessary to guide Nova Scotia’s economy through the change.

“It’s crucial for us to do the thinking that will make sure that we do out part in the environmental response to the climate change threat, and at the same time we do it in a way that addresses our economic challenges,” he said at a Tuesday press conference.

“Nova Scotia’s economic present, our prospects, our future depend upon our success in making this green transition,” he added.

Burrill said the legislation is, in part, a response to last fall’s report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said that “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” are necessary to stem the worst effects of climate change.

It’s also a response to Nova Scotia’s continual need for “good, well-paying jobs,” and the potential for growth in green energy sectors.

Mark Butler, policy director with the Ecology Action Centre, said “combining job creation with addressing climate change or protecting the environment makes so much sense,” and Nova Scotia is “well positioned to take advantage” of a transition to a green economy.

“If anybody should be able to kind of create the green economy of the future, create green jobs, it’s Nova Scotia,” he said.

“We’ve got a wealth of renewable resources,” he added, pointing to wind and tidal energy.

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Butler said that if there was a concerted push toward renewable energy, Nova Scotia could possibly wean off coal more quickly. As it stands, the federal government intends to phase out coal by 2030, but Nova Scotia was granted a special concession as part of a greenhouse-gas equivalency agreement.

Governments around the world have been toying with plans like the one the NDP proposes “for some time,” according to Butler, but the idea has been slow to catch on. He said the Green New Deal — a Democrat-backed bill now before the U.S. Congress — has re-energized the idea.

Burrill said the American Green New Deal is the most familiar of its kind to North Americans and is something the NDP looked at in writing their bill, but added “there’s really an international ferment around this.”

Nova Scotia already has a piece legislation that addresses the health of the environment and the health of the economy in tandem, although it stands to be updated.

Under a Tory government in 2007 Nova Scotia adopted the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act (EGSPA), which set out to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. That act was updated in 2012 and was due for another update in 2018 — something that has yet to happen.

Butler — who has been a stakeholder in conversations around EGSPA — said the act is lacking in its current form.

“We could have an electric vehicle goal in it, we could have a home efficiency goal in it, we could have a new solid waste goal in it. There’s all kinds of opportunities,” he said.

Environment Minister Margaret Miller agreed that EGSPA needs to be updated and said it will be done within the year.

“We’re working with the team, we’re with advisers, looking at what are the next steps for EGSPA,” she told reporters Tuesday after the NDP bill was introduced.

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She said an update to EGSPA has the potential to address some of the targets that the NDP wants to see around the creation of green jobs.

Burrill said he wants to see EGSPA updated, in addition to having the Green Jobs Act adopted.

“EGSPA is a perfect example of how parties can come together for an extra-partisan issue at the level of the environment,” he said, referring to the all-party support EGSPA received in 2007.

“We put forward our bill for the Green Jobs Act in that same spirit, we think that this moment of transition from a fossil fuels-dominated economy to a renewable-dominated economy is one that does call for the attention of all three parties in the legislature, and I hope that the other parties will receive it and consider it in that same spirit.”

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