Toronto — New Brunswick was the only province not in attendance at the Climate Summit of the Americas in Ontario last week. The summit invited all branches of government from across North and Latin America to make a commitment to set emission reduction targets, and New Brunswick’s decision to opt out has the Liberal Party government in the hot seat. Despite this, Premier Brian Gallant has expressed his opinion that dealing with the issue of climate change will be “no sweat.”
“I don’t mean to sound cold-hearted, but I don’t know what everyone is so heated up about,” said Gallant, with a sly smile. “All those climate-change fanatics just need to chill out.”
The government’s dismissive attitude toward climate change has come under fire recently, and has several environmental groups beginning to lose their cool. Many people feel that the summit would have been an important step to break the ice and to start a dialogue concerning climate change.
“You know what’s really got me hot under the collar?” asked environmental activist Alexandra Richard, chuckling to herself. “It’s the fact that our government just doesn’t care about our carbon footprint. If we don’t stop our bad habits cold turkey, then pretty soon, we’re going to find ourselves in hot water.”
Environment Minister Brian Kenny was not available for an interview, but he did issue a release to The Manatee on the matter, stating: “I think that we had little incentive to attend because it doesn’t seem like New Brunswickers take climate change seriously. There are too many political arguments — with no consensus. Climate change is an important issue that we all must carefully consider. However, I am confident that, in the end… cooler heads will prevail! HA!”