Review of N.S. environmental law will take place behind closed doors

It's time for Nova Scotia to take another look at its Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act. Let's start with what the legislation says. The minister shall request the roundtable to carry out a public review of this act and the regulations no later than five years after the act comes into force. Next month will mark five years since the law passed. In Her Majesty's name, I assent to these bills. Nova Scotia's environment minister says he'll satisfy the requirement this way. It'll be a discussion with the roundtable and I look forward to that feedback from the roundtable and I'll take that feedback under advisement as we move forward. That roundtable is a government-appointed advisory committee that has 13 members. Some say that a review, including only those roundtable members, does not meet the spirit of the law. The public review requirement requires some form of review process that involves the public. So in my view, that requires more than simply discussions with the roundtable. Now we need to be talking about what do we want between now and 2035, 2040. We need to look a bit farther out and to do that we do need input from the broader public. The legislation includes 28 goals. The province says it's completed 13, including doing climate change risk assessments and tightening rules against air pollution. Many of the others are ongoing, with deadlines at the end of the decade, like protecting 20% of all land and water. One is confirmed to have been abandoned, the local food strategy, while others appear to have fallen by the wayside, although the government says the work is still ongoing. It's about priorities. We remain committed to the goals and we keep working on as many of them as we can. Hallman says the green energy goals are a top priority. The act says we have to be off coal and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 53% by 2030. Electricity is the biggest contributor to emissions. New wind farms are supposed to fix that if more are built in time. The next biggest contributor is transportation. Some things have happened. We have the formation of Link Nova Scotia. But there's a lot to be done on the transportation file. After transportation, it's buildings. This passive design expert says the province has been adopting progressive, energy-efficient building codes, but that progress is about to hit a wall. We don't know beyond 2027 what trajectory the province of Nova Scotia is proposing, which I think is a problem. The environment minister says he's willing to tell the public what he discusses with his roundtable, and this piece of legislation could have a part two to come. Taryn Grant, CBC News, Halifax.