Nova Scotia Auditor General Kim Adair released her performance audit of the effectiveness of the Green Fund yesterday.

The Green Fund was set up in 2019, and its goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, encourage adaptation, and prepare for climate change impacts through financing programs.

"There's a number of things in that act that should be targeted towards programs that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, for research and development, or public awareness when it comes to climate change issues," said Adair.

However, Adair said the new findings show $74 million being transferred out of the fund over its first two years of operation, but only $11.9 million were spent on climate change programs.

"Large companies that exceed greenhouse emissions are required to pay money into the green plant. So with the first two years of our audit, that was roughly $74 million. Our concern was the fact that they had spent about $12 million of the $74 million on the various programs. But there was still roughly $60 million that had not been spent," said Adair.

The $60 million were sitting in "program partner" bank accounts, sent to two non-profit agencies: EfficiencyOne and the Clean Foundation. Adair said this was unusual and recommended that in the future, funds should be allocated as needed rather than paid upfront.

"For the delivery of the programs that are being delivered by EfficiencyOne, and Clean Foundation, we found that those two departments weren't effectively monitoring the spending of the funding. If you're gonna give them the funds upfront, you need to monitor it with a lot of rigor and pay close attention to the reports that are coming in. We found weaknesses in that area, as well," said Adair.

Adair outlined six recommendations to the Department of Environment and Climate Change to address the concerns in the Green Fund report.

"In the report, they have indicated their response to our recommendations. So essentially, they have agreed with them, and they actually detail in the response what they're going to do on a forward basis to address the issues.  They have a timeline as to the date on which they will complete the implementation of those recommendations. And then next week, actually, the department will be in front of the Public Accounts Committee," explained Adair.

She said that although climate change can be a challenging topic to address, there should be clear programs in place to monitor the spending of the program and make sure that the administration of that funding is efficient.

Adair outlined six total recommendations to address concerns found in the Green Fund report. Photo from Office of Auditor General of Nova Scotia.

Listen to the full interview below: