Province has a plan to reduce GHGs, says environment minister

Saskatchewan's environment minister says although the province will not meet a promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent before next year, its new plan will lead to large reductions by 2030.

"I would say we have a whole suite of legislation and regulatory changes that were made just in the last year or so that I think are going to point to some real emissions reductions while at the same time allowing the economy to grow," said Dustin Duncan.

Duncan said the government's Prairie Resilience climate change strategy has targets of a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at SaskPower by 2030, a 40 to 45 per cent reduction in methane emissions, and regulations that will see the heavy emitting sector reduce its emissions by about 12 million tons.

Greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. A collection of 11,000 scientists recently signed a letter declaring a climate emergency, warning that policy-makers around the world must act.

Back in 2009 the government promised a 20 per cent reduction of greenhouse gasses by 2020.

But Opposition Leader Ryan Meili said the government didn't even try to reach its promised target.

"In fact they've gone the other direction," Meili said. "They promised a reduction of 20 per cent. Instead we've seen an increase of 10 per cent and that's because targets don't work if you don't actually plan to meet them."

Duncan says his government does recognize the urgency of climate change.

But hitting the 2020 emissions reduction target would have meant shutting down major industries such as oil and gas, steel and mining.

Duncan said new thermal technology methods for extracting oil will reduce GHGs in that sector..

"I would say that we can see increased oil production at a smaller carbon footprint than we currently see with conventional technology," said Duncan.

We are a carbon intensive economy where we're a relatively small population over a large geographical area. And that's has some limitations in terms of where we may be able to find our emissions reductions.- Saskatchewan Environment Minister Dustin Duncan

"So you know the world's going to depend on oil. We have oil to supply and we think we can do so though with an even lesser or smaller carbon footprint."

The Saskatchewan Environmental Society has said the province did not put in any policy measures to make serious emissions reductions.

"We really need to start seeing climate change as an emergency," said Peter Pebble of the Saskatchewan Environmental Society.

"The situation is so serious that some parts of the world are going to become uninhabitable because of greenhouse gas emission."

Pebble said we're not experiencing emergency circumstances in Saskatchewan yet, but "we'll be impacted as well."

He said devastating forest fires in B.C., California and Australia are examples of what the future holds if we don't reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But Duncan said the Prairie Resilience document does have real emissions reductions in it. 

"It's a living document," he said. "So there is the opportunity to change it over time ... I think it's one that does try to balance off the economy and the environment."