NBASGA

Science does not support lifting fracking moratorium

Protections put in place should be relaxed only if further findings emerge providing evidence no harm will result

By Jim Emberger – Special to Brunswick News – Published Oct 5, 2024

A recent Narrative Research poll, commissioned by Brunswick News, on lifting the fracking moratorium noted that the second largest group of poll respondents (19 per cent) replied “I don’t know” to the questions.

That likely illustrates that the success of the moratorium. For ten years it has, ironically, removed the shale gas issue from civic and media discussion.

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Comments on the Energy Transition Roadmap

Context

The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance is a coalition of Anglophone and francophone groups from across the province that has since 2010 pursued two mandates – promoting the transition to a clean energy economy, and stopping the development of unconventional fossil fuels in New Brunswick.

We have done so via public education, formal testimony to government, legal actions, and media advocacy, all based on a foundation of scientific, public health, and economic facts and research.  We certainly consider ourselves major stakeholders in the Energy Transition.

The context surrounding all of our comments is the rapidly increasing harms brought by climate change – the underlying reason for this energy transition.

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Tribute to Dr. Eilish Cleary (1963-2024)

by Deborah Carr
President, New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance

There are few people in public service who hold my respect as much as Dr. Eilish Cleary, our former Chief Medical Health Officer. To say I’m shocked and saddened at her death is an understatement. We had some wonderful conversations. She was one of my heroes.

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Stop the Gas

Environmental organizations representing millions of Canadians call on the federal government to reject new East Coast LNG export facilities due to climate-wrecking emissions and risks of stranded assets 

[Le français suit]

Halifax, NS – Ahead of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Canada to discuss a potential  LNG deal, environmental organizations representing millions of Canadians are launching an initiative called StoptheGas to call on the federal government to reject proposals for new East Coast gas export facilities due to climate impacts and economic risks.

“On the world stage, Canadian politicians deliver passionate speeches about climate action, but their words will be revealed as empty promises if the federal government approves new fossil gas infrastructure on the East Coast that will facilitate climate-damaging emissions. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, ‘investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness,” says Kelsey Lane, Climate Policy Coordinator, Ecology Action Centre.

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Renewable energy is the future, not fossil fuels

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2022

Traditional Land of Wabanaki People/Fredericton – The Conservation Council of New Brunswick and the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance issued the following joint statement in response to Premier Blaine Higgs’ speculation that shale gas and liquified natural gas are solutions to war-induced threats to European gas supply:

Premier Higgs’ talk of ripping up the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing and building an LNG export terminal in Saint John to “save our neighbours internationally” is shortsighted, unrealistic and fails to protect New Brunswickers’ health and safety from the increasing threats of climate change.

In a landmark 2021 report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded that to reach net zero emissions by 2050 no new oil, gas or coal development is possible if the world is to avoid a global temperature increase of 1.5°C.

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Concerns to Minister of Justice on CRCC RCMP Review go unanswered

In early July, NBASGA, along with member groups, Kent County Council of Canadians and Notre Environnement, Notre Choix, and our friends and allies from Kobit Lodge (representing Elsipogtog First Nation), sent letters to federal Minister of Justice Lametti concerning the final report of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), which was investigating RCMP actions during a 2013 raid in Rexton, NB.

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Federal carbon tax ‘overreaches and invades’ N.B. jurisdiction: court docs

ADAM HURAS, Telegraph Journal, 7 February 2019

The Trudeau government’s carbon tax “overreaches and invades” provincial jurisdiction, according to New Brunswick’s legal argument filed in a Saskatchewan court that aims to challenge Ottawa’s looming price on carbon. The province’s attorney general’s office has filed a factum ahead of the prairie province’s carbon tax court challenge set to be heard next week.

New Brunswick sought to intervene in the case as the Higgs government attempts to fight the carbon tax slated to be handed down by Ottawa beginning in April.

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NBASGA given Intervener Status in Saskatchewan Carbon Pricing Case

For immediate release: February 6, 2019

[Le français suit]

FREDERICTON — Today, the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA) announced it has been accepted as an intervener in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeals reference case against the federal carbon tax.  NBASGA will intervene in support of the federal government and against New Brunswick.

“Climate change is happening here and now, and it needs a fair, effective and immediate response,” says NBASGA’s Jim Emberger.  Winter and summer flooding, storm surges from intense storms and sea level-rise, droughts, heat waves and other climate change effects are already disrupting the lives, livelihoods, and well being of New Brunswickers, and are predicted to get worse.

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Shale gas won’t change N.B.’s fiscal woes

by Jim Emberger, Telegraph Journal   Sept. 21,2018   Featured Letter

The recent Atlantica Centre for Energy commentary about making N.B. a “have” province, by comparing it to Saskatchewan, uses only one financial figure. It predicts that shale gas could provide $900 million annually to our economy.

This is a hopeful speculation.

Perhaps examining some actual figures would be more instructive.

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Maintain the NB Moratorium

PC Platform Plank on Resource Development is Without Substance

For Immediate Release
Sept. 13, 2018

[Le français suit]

(Fredericton) With less than two weeks left until the election, the Progressive Conservatives’ finally released their party platform. It contains a single sentence supporting ‘regional resource development.’  The words ‘shale’, ‘fracking’ and ‘moratorium’ do not appear in the document.

It is clearly designed to mask the PC’s plan to lift the moratorium on fracking without arousing citizens who fought a bitter battle to stop fracking during the last election.

Jim Emberger, Spokesperson for the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA), warns that, “The platform statement is a catch phrase without benefit of details, designed to mute discussion of a contentious and deadly serious issue during the election,” adding that, “the language is so vague because the PC’s are aware of the continued widespread opposition to shale gas development.  They don’t want the issue examined too closely.”

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