HALIFAX—As the provincial government promises to renew its soon-to-expire climate targets, one of Nova Scotia’s best-known environmental advocacy groups has proposed its own set of green goals based on dramatic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) — a Halifax-based non-profit — has six goals that it wants to see incorporated into provincial legislation. If achieved, those goals could bring 15,000 green jobs and $816 million in GDP to Nova Scotia by 2030, according to a new cost-benefit analysis by Gardner Pinfold Consulting.

The analysis, released Tuesday, compares the EAC’s proposed targets to the status quo. While the EAC says Nova Scotia needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030, the province is currently aiming to reduce GHGs to 45 to 50 per cent below 2005 levels under the same timeline.

Stephen Thomas, the EAC’s energy campaign co-ordinator, said the existing target is “inadequate.”

“The target that we have put forward is the bare minimum for Nova Scotia to meet its fair share of commitments to keep global warming below 1.5 C as it is laid out in the Paris Agreement,” Thomas told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.

He said if every jurisdiction in the world had targets like Nova Scotia’s, global temperature would be heading for 3 C to 4 C of warming. Last fall’s landmark report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cautioned against even 2 C of warming.

The EAC also calls for converting the electric grid to 90 per cent renewable energy and making electric energy three times more efficient.

So far in 2019, 29 per cent of energy from Nova Scotia Power (NSP), the province’s electric utility, has come from renewable sources and the utility has a legislated target of 40 per cent renewable energy by 2020. To close that gap, NSP will rely largely on the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador — a controversial project that has been running over budget and behind schedule, and has sparked concerns from First Nations communities about potential methylmercury contamination to their food sources upon completion.

Thomas said the EAC was cognizant of “very real land Indigenous rights issues” associated with Muskrat Falls, but the EAC’s plan still counts on the province’s projected imports from the hydroelectric dam.

“We’ve been careful not to propose any new large hydros as part of our analysis,” he added.

The proposal calls for cuts to natural gas and oil use and the total elimination of coal energy from the electric grid, and for additional wind and solar energy.

The EAC also calls for social housing to be retrofitted for energy efficiency, and for investments in public transit to electrify buses and increase ridership to reduce dependence on private vehicles.

Meanwhile, the provincial government says it’s working on new environmental legislation to replace the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act (EGSPA).

First legislated in 2007, EGSPA was due for renewal in 2017 and many of its timelines will reach their end in 2020. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Environment Minister Gordon Wilson said new legislation could be introduced during the fall sitting of the legislature, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 26.

Wilson was briefed on the EAC’s proposed goals and the Gardner Pinfold analysis last week, but said he needed to give the report “a closer look” before deciding if and how his department would incorporate the findings into new environmental legislation.

He said the EAC brought forward “important pieces of information,” but he also wanted to hear from the private sector and the general public.

The province asked for public feedback last month, which can be submitted via email until Sept. 27, but Thomas said he had concerns about the accessibility of that consultation process. Thomas and the EAC are advocating for in-person public consultations before legislation is finalized.

“This is a big deal — the renewal of this act,” he said. “The folks who are most impacted by climate change are the folks who we really need to hear from when we are proposing solutions to climate change.”

Wilson said the online consultation was a “first step” and ensured there would be further consultation to come.

The Nova Scotia NDP responded to the EAC’s report in a news release with support for the GHG reduction targets.

NDP Leader Gary Burrill said the report highlighted the job creation potential of green industries and the need for Nova Scotia to legislate environmental goals.

“Green jobs are the jobs of the future,” Burrill is quoted as saying.

Burrill pointed to his party’s Green Jobs Act, introduced at the legislature in March, and said the EAC’s report “shows how urgent it is for Nova Scotia to adopt this legislation and begin creating a framework for green job creation.”

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The Progressive Conservatives said their environment critic, MLA Brad Johns, was still reviewing the EAC’s report and would bring it to his caucus colleagues.

In an emailed statement, Johns said EGSPA was “a groundbreaking piece of legislation” introduced by the Tory government of the day, but “the Liberals are two years late” in updating it.

“I am glad they have turned their minds to it now. It is essential that the new goals are enshrined in legislation rather than through regulations,” Johns said.

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