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Tuesday April 21 2015 3 ENVIRONMENT CLIMATE CHANGE The Pelican Rapids Golf Country Club is currently hiring Club House Staff. Drop off a resume at Lous Small Engines. ANNUALANNUALANNUAL GENERALGENERALGENERAL MEETINGMEETINGMEETING 700 PM Thursday April 23 2015 RC Legion in Fort Smith Fort Smith District Education Authority PICHE SCHOLARSHIP Applications for the 2015 Piche Scholarship Award will commence on April 13 2015 and close May 19 2015 at 330PM Application criteria can be picked up at the FSDEA office at JBT or call 872-2011 and criteria can be mailed. Completed applications are to be mailed to Fort Smith District Education Authority P.O. Box 131 Fort Smith NT X0E 0P0 or dropped off in person to JBT School no later than May19th at 330PM. Climate change goals cant make life harder in NWT premier By MEAGAN WOHLBERG As Canada prepares to present its emis- sions targets at the next international climate convention in Paris this winter Northern premiers are looking to ensure those goals dont make life more challenging for residents above the 60th parallel. NWT Premier Bob McLeod released a joint statementwithfellowPremiersDarrellPasloski in the Yukon and Peter Taptuna in Nunavut last week in preparation for the national Cli- mate Summit in Quebec City on Apr. 14. ThestatementpointsoutthatCanadasNorth- ernterritorieshavehadaminorimpactonover- all greenhouse gas emissions in the country while at the same time experiencing the rst- handimpactsofclimatechangemostseverely. With that in mind their Northern per- spective calls for Canadas climate goals to be conducted in a way that does not signi- cantly impact Northern costs of living under- mine food insecurity or threaten emerging economies the premiers agreed. I think it really reinforced the science and certainly for the southern jurisdictions it made them realize that although they rec- ognize climate change is starting to impact them more...for us we can actually show how its impacting us how were having to adapt and mitigate McLeod told The Journal. Notonlyisclimatechangeaffectingusbutits combinedwiththefactthatwerefacedwithvery highcostsofenergyandalackofinfrastructure. That means no carbon pricing or carbon storage he said at least for now. I think that if we put in a carbon tax immediately that would increase the cost of living. If we put in a cap and trade system that would also impact McLeod said. The model- lingthatwevedoneinthepastindicatedthatwe have a very small economy and carbon pricing approacheswouldprovideverylimitedbenet. If anything if we decided to go down that road wed probably have to join up with somebody else he said. Then those dollars would ow south. While low on the scale of emitters overall McLeodadmittedthattheNWThasthehighest rateofgreenhousegasemissionspercapitainthe countryduetothefactthatmanycommunities rely on diesel for their electricity and heating. That struggle is compounded by the very realeffectsofclimatechangealreadybeingfelt in the North which have made the necessary conversions to clean energy more challenging while the NWT is forced to - sometimes liter- ally - put out res caused by climate change. Last years record-breaking wildre season consumed an estimated 3.5 million hectares of forest ultimately caused by a drought that has also cut back on the use of hydroelectric- ity in the territory. Warming experienced at four times the rate of the south is also caus- ing permafrost melt coastal erosion and loss of sea ice in the NWT. ThatswhyMcLeodsaidasmuchofthefocus for the GNWT has to be placed on adaptation and mitigation as is on emissions reduction. Evenhydrosatrisknowbecauseofthechang- ing Northern climate and the predictions for continueddroughthesaid.Sowecanensure that there are reliable energy and heating sys- temsinourcommunitiesbutevenifwemovea longwaysonrenewablesandalternativeswere still going to have to use diesel as redundancy. Despite the challenges he said the terri- tory is still nding ways to cut its emissions by investing more and more into renewables like biomass and solar and nding ways to conserve and increase efciency. The work were doing is resulting in a re- duction in greenhouse gas emissions so that this year 2015 weve reduced our emissions to 2005 levels McLeod said. Ithinkthemostsuccesswevehadinreduc- ing our greenhouse gas emissions has been in the use of biomass by converting buildings to biomass heating which has allowed us to re- duce our greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent. Proportionately were the highest users of biomass energy in Canada he said. Were also expanding the use of solar en- ergy currently we have 294 KW of solar en- ergy electricity capacity and we made a com- mitment to replace 20 per cent of the average load in diesel with solar systems by 2017. McLeod said the provinces and territories are expected to come to an agreement on tar- getswiththefederalgovernmentbySeptember starting with a meeting of environment minis- ters in early June the Climate Summit of the Americas in Ontario in July and Council of the Federation meetings also set for this summer. He said cooperation among jurisdictions and the federal government is going to be key in coming up with an arrangement that ef- fectively controls emissions while adapting to ongoing change. TheUnitedNationsClimateChangeConference inParisisscheduledforNov.30toDec.112015. Continued from page 1. If the project goes ahead in future years wed have to start from scratch Hering con- tinued. It would also show funders that their money wasnt wasted this year. While he understands the inconvenience for the scientists Hudson said a decision has been made and needs to be upheld. I know they wanted to salvage some of the work but I said If you guys want to come back next year and meet with us and put a complete package together youre welcome to do that Hudson said. Im not saying they will get support because they got peo- ple pissed off with them. I think if there was proper consultation they may have not got- ten support because people found out this could eventually lead to cleaning up of the park and maybe taking all the buffalos out of the equation. They may not get support the second round. There are still plans in the works to try to continue with the study Hering said. Whether or not it will go ahead depends on support from the local community and from nan- cial sponsors. Theres denitely still hope to try and pur- sue this study again in future years. Were still taking the steps toward the consulta- tion we need to do in WBNP and I think if there is support in Fort Smith then there is still interest in trying it again for next year he said. Theres a lot of value in this project in terms of long-term management of disease in the area and of bison conservation in Canada in general. We really just need more tools to be able to deal with these diseases and I think its really in the best interest of local people as well as bison conservation as well as re- search in Canada. I think its sort of a win for all of them. Future of study will depend on community support funding Masters student Adam Hering conducts TB testing on a wood bison earlier this year. PhotoChristaCoetser PhotoRobertvanWaardenGreenpeace Around 25000 people march for action on climate change in Quebec City last week during the national climate change summit where provinces and territories met to discuss targets. ENVIRONMENT WILDLIFE