In 2019, students around the world held a series of climate strikes, calling on their respective governments to address climate change.
On Sept. 27, 2019, an estimated 10,000 people took part in a student-organized protest calling for climate action. Now many of those students will have their chance to vote in a provincial election for the first time.
Among them is Willa Fisher, who helped lead that massive march three years ago. She is looking forward to getting a chance to cast her ballot — and climate change will be one of the things she considers when looking at the different parties and candidates.
“It’s really about who is going to make the change because some change is better than empty words and no change,” said Fisher.
All three of the main parties have talked about climate change and outlined their plans and promises to help the environment.
On Tuesday, Liberal Leader Iain Rankin highlighted his party’s goals for tackling climate change.
“The centrepiece of our platform is our commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 53 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030,” he said, noting that it’s the most ambitious target in the country.
“And we will also become the first province to become net zero before 2050.”
An NDP government led by Gary Burrill would have a similar target.
“We’ll introduce a new greenhouse gas emissions reduction level for Nova Scotia, which will be at the level of 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030,” Burrill said on July 27.
If elected, the PC Party led by Tim Houston would focus on renewable energy.
“We’ll take the fight against climate change to a new level by moving Nova Scotia power supply to 80 per cent renewable by 2030 and designate 20 per cent of all Nova Scotia land and water mass for conservation by 2030 as well,” Houston said on July 23.
Fisher says she’s glad that everybody is talking about climate change and believes that the student strikes helped spark that conversation, but she says these lofty goals are not the right approach.
“Oftentimes there’s no specifics there. They don’t know how they’re going to do that; we don’t know how they’re going to do that. They say they’re going to do that but they probably aren’t if they don’t have a plan,” said Fisher.
The first-time voter says instead she’d like to see parties also focus more on local attainable issues.
“Putting real policies in about how they’re going to phase out coal and when each step is going to happen, and stopping Alton Gas and stopping the sale of Owl’s Head,” said Fisher.
Fisher says she’s eager to cast her ballot and will be considering various issues before choosing who best to represent her, and she is also hopeful that this election will bring out more younger voters than in previous years.
“I think the school strike movement really changed a lot of people’s thinking about how we can have an effect in these real-life situations and how we’re a lot more powerful than how thought we were before.”
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