Climate change hearings wrap up in Fredericton

A need for education, incentives to convert to greener technology, and the reality of climate change are a few of the themes that dominated the public hearings of the Select Committee on Climate Change. 

On its last day of public hearings, the committee heard that floods, winds, heavy rains and their resulting damage, have forced the City of Fredericton to change everything from tree selection, to the size of culverts.  

 "20 years ago, a very large rainstorm event would have been 60-70 mm in a 24-hour period. We've seen rainstorms in excess of 150 mm in less than a 24-hour period," said city managing engineer, Sean Lee.

 "We have a system that is fairly robust, and works fairly well, but we use those events to figure out where we need to make changes."

Committee member David Coon said, "Everywhere we've gone, we've seen these dramatic pictures of flooding and road washouts and storm damages, it's quite extraordinary. So municipalities are engaged as a result."  

Incentives for going green

Coon said another recurring theme was individuals and businesses willing to "go green" if they were offered financial help to deal with the conversion.

That is an idea Enbridge Gas New Brunwick's general manager applauds. Gilles Volpe repeated the name others have mentioned, 'Efficiency NB.'

He suggested the government, "can provide either incentives, like Efficiency NB used to do before they got absorbed into the electric company. They used to provide incentives for people to diversify, and look at different heating systems for their home, and they rewarded customers who bought efficient systems for their homes."

Protecting forests and rivers

Among the more than 100 presenters, many groups repeated the message to protect forest and rivers as the best buffer against climate change, although the committee also heard that the province's forestry plan hasn't taken climate change into account.

"Government itself,"said committee chair Andrew Harvey, " has a big role to play in this as far as our building and fleet, things we can do internally to show leadership."

The committee meets in closed sessions with Mi' kmaq and Maliseet leaders next week.

Andrew Harvey says the committee hopes to present its recommendations to the legislature by mid-October.