[D]emonstrators from Vermont environmental groups will protest at the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers conference in Stowe, starting on Sunday.
Toxics Action Center, Rights & Democracy, the Sierra Club and 350Vermont say regional leaders have done little to stem climate change.
Energy is a major focus of the conference, which will take place at Stowe Mountain Resort, Sunday through Tuesday.
Jason Gibbs, chief of staff for Gov. Phil Scott, says the meetings are meant to spur cross-border cooperation not only on energy policy, but also on trade, security and transportation.
Gibbs said “some emphasis” will likely be placed on showing federal counterparts in the middle of NAFTA negotiations how well the governors and premiers of the northeast region collaborate. “They are there on the ground next to the job creators in their states that are engaged in the international marketplace,” he said.
The combined economy of New England and the five Canadian provinces — New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec — ranks 14th in the world, Gibbs said. “That ranks us ahead of South Korea and just behind Australia,” he said.
A glance through the conference’s agenda and list of sponsors indicates that energy will be at the forefront of the regional leaders’ minds. Of the 32 sponsors, 23 — including eight of the nine largest contributors — are energy companies or service providers. Two of the three conference sessions and the entirety of the “business-to-business” breakout are on the energy sector.
This focus has led such groups as the Toxics Action Center, Rights & Democracy, the Sierra Club and 350Vermont to schedule events that will, in the words of organizer Laura Simons, “dispel false solutions to climate change.”
Simons, a Wilder resident, said she and other environmental activists have protested at previous conferences of governors and premiers. “As we move toward renewable solutions, those solutions also have to be healthy for people and the environment,” she said.
Steve Crowley, head of the Vermont Sierra Club’s political committee, put it more bluntly: “Vermont has a tradition, an unfortunate tradition, of hiding the environmental costs of its electricity.”
He said the conference “lays the groundwork for a lot of positive things” between the two countries, but can also set the stage for new energy projects, like fossil fuel pipelines, that his group opposes.
Hydropower counts toward one tier of the Vermont’s renewable energy standard, which requires that 55 percent of a utility’s electricity sales come from renewable sources. Crowley said that hydropower imported from Canada should not be considered renewable considering the ecological impacts of large dams on the region’s forests.
“If you look at the ecosystem, they clear cut 10,000 square miles — an area the size of Vermont — to flood the reservoirs,” said Crowley, adding that this removes a large swath of boreal forest previously capturing carbon.
“We’d like to see a dramatic expansion for our commitment of local, distributed renewable power,” he said.
“Ninety by 50 is not as meaningful if it’s coming from hydro projects that are neither renewable nor carbon neutral,” Crowley added, referring to Vermont’s goal, set in the 2016 comprehensive energy plan, to get 90 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2050.
Gibbs said that the governor’s office had not heard of any planned protests and wondered whether the protesters had reviewed the conference agenda in full.
“It’s not clear to us what they would be protesting if they are … planning to focus on energy issues,” said Gibbs, adding that the energy portion of the conference focuses on affordably expanding clean energy and improving electric vehicle infrastructure.
“I suppose they could protest against those things if they are so inclined,” he said, “but that would be bewildering to us.”
Gibbs said there were “contingency plans in place for people who want to express their opinions to do so.”
The protests starts at 2:30 p.m. Sunday with a rally at the entrance of Stowe Mountain Resort, followed by an energy and climate forum from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Waterbury United Church of Christ. On Monday, the coalition is hosting an alternate press conference and rally at 5 p.m. at the entrance to Stowe Mountain Resort immediately after the governor’s press conference inside the resort.
