WHEREAS the 17th Assembly’s Minister’s Committee on Energy and Climate Change failed to make any evident progress on planning for climate change;
AND WHEREAS the GNWT’s estimated annual costs associated with the impacts of climate change have increased rapidly to hundreds of millions of dollars;
AND WHEREAS the projected costs in public infrastructure damage caused by climate change through the loss of permafrost in the next 15 years is projected to be in the order of billions of dollars;
AND WHEREAS there is every reason to expect equally severe costs to private, commercial and institutional infrastructure as climate change impacts accelerate;
AND WHEREAS there continues to be a lack of understanding and acknowledgement of the ongoing and worsening impacts of climate change to infrastructure, health, economy, food security, community viability in coastal and low-lying regions, community resupply and energy security in our fiscal and operational management planning;
AND WHEREAS we are leaving the 18th Assembly with restricted financial potential in large degree due to unanticipated and unplanned extreme costs to manage climate change-related events;
AND WHEREAS acknowledging, anticipating, planning for and being prepared for climate change impacts can substantially reduce costs and enable actions that benefit our residents and communities associated through jobs and locally focussed activity;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that the Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories develop a comprehensive and long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation plan in anticipation of the projected effects of climate change;
AND FURTHER, that this action plan include a strategy for shifting the Northwest Territories from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, including targets recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050, each from 1990 levels;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the government provide a comprehensive response to this motion to the 18th Legislative Assembly by June 2018. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.