N.B. Climate Change Committee advised to act quickly

Implementing policies and procedures quickly was a recurring theme, as the New Brunswick government’s Select Committee on Climate Change began two days of expert presentations.

“Climate change adaptation is actually quite an urgent issue,” said Alain Bourque, Executive Director for Montreal’s Ouranos Consortium on Climate Change.

“It doesn’t look that urgent because it’s not that obvious that there’s going to be major natural disaster enhanced by climate change tomorrow or next week or next summer.”

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Bourque says climate change needs to be considered as cities move forward with their planning, especially in areas that possess the potential for flooding.

“The risks are increasing — all kinds of risks increasing. And a lot of the initial vulnerability that we have is linked to the way that we have historically built infrastructure,” he said.

“The way that we have historically developed our cities sometimes in somewhat risky zones: close to a river or close to a coast.”

The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction’s Executive Director, Paul Kovacs, commended the province on already discussing climate change adaptation and urges the elected officials to create a multi-faceted approach to deal with challenges as soon as possible.

“The government of New Brunswick should have a climate change strategy that deals with both managing emissions and with adaptation investments. And I think both issues should be about equal proportion,” said Kovacs. ”

“It’s time to move now, it’s time to take effective action to adapt to the changes taking place in the climate.”

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The Select Committee will continue to hear from expert presenters on Friday. From there, they will travel the province throughout the summer hearing from interested parties before preparing their report for the provincial government this fall.