Province fairs poorly on environmental report card
By SUSAN BRADLEY Business Reporter
The Chronicle Herald - November 3, 2005

If Nova Scotia’s green economy was rated on the colour spectrum, it would be a sickly mint, rather than a robust pea.

That’s how the province stacked up in NovaKnowledge’s report card on environmental economic growth, released Wednesday in Halifax.

Nova Scotia is regrettably a national leader in the production of carbon dioxide emissions, said Michael Gardner, a Halifax economist who worked on the 8th annual report card.

“We are 20 per cent above the national average because of our reliance on fossil fuels. We’ve got a long way to go.”

A regional effort is needed to help reduce the use of coal, and oil and gas to produce electricity, he said.

“If we addressed power issues differently here, if provincial barriers disappeared, we could use more hydroelectricity throughout the region, and export less to the United States.”

Faster incorporation of alternative energy sources, such as wind, tidal, solar and biomass, is also needed.

The not-for-profit organization, developed to promote a sustainable economy here, urged private business to participate more in helping to bring environmental technologies to market. Two-thirds of all research and development here is funded by the public sector.

But a lack of venture capital, noted in last year’s NovaKnowledge report card, remains an obstacle.

Available funds hit a six-year low of $7 million in 2004, said the organization’s executive director Kate Crinean, making annual targets of $30 million for 2006 and $50 million by 2010 appear all but unreachable.

“But the first half of 2005 looks brighter,” she said.

That’s partly due to GrowthWorks Atlantic Venture Fund, supported Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, which started in January with the goal of raising $500,000 to $5 million in equity financing through investment tax credits.

Several other economic development funds are also in progress but “these actions are not sufficient,” Ms. Crinean warned.

Like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia needs to free up pools of pension fund money to increase the amount of venture capital here, she said.

(sbradley@herald.ca) 
Copyright © 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited