Sask. falling short on fighting climate change: report

Saskatchewan has been called out for falling short in several areas when it comes to fighting climate change.

That's according to a cross-country report from the Office of the Auditor General of Canadaon government response to climate change, which wasreleased Tuesday and prepared jointly byfederal Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand and auditors general from nine provinces.

The general consensus of the report is that there is no consistent method between provinces to measure and report on greenhouse gas emissions. This makes it difficult for Canada to report on its pledge to reduceemissions by at least 30 per cent below2005 levels by 2030.

Deficiencies in strategy

Of the 12 provinces and territories that were part of the report, seven including Saskatchewandid not have a target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

The plans of eight provinces and territoriesdid not include details such as timelines, detailed implementation plans, and cost estimates, the report said.

Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, however, did not havea strategy, according to the report.

Saskatchewan's government isstill refusing to sign the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, intended to provide anational plan to meet Canada's 2030 emission reduction target.

On Tuesday Dustin Duncan said he saw the findings as a positive.

"When you look at the projections going out to 2030, Saskatchewan, I think, is projected to have the second [highest] greenhouse gas emissions reductions compared to the other provinces without a carbon tax," said Duncan.

Duncan saidthe province's climate change plan will be in place by January 2019. He saidtarget details will be released in the coming months.

"Saskatchewan is a pretty small piece of the global pie and climate will continue so we need to be resilient to those changes," he said. "The plan by the province of Saskatchewan goes so much further than where the federal government is at on this."

At the time of the report, theprovince's Ministry of Environment also hadnot completed an assessment related to climate change risks, as it was in the process of gathering information from other government agencies.

The report did acknowledge, though,that Saskatchewan was developing policies related to cutting emissions "using the direction set in the government's October 2016 Climate Change White Paper."

Provincial auditorJudy Ferguson said the province is in a better position since releasingdetails of their made-in Saskatchewan climate plan.

"I think if we would have had the climate change strategy at the point in time that we did the work, it would've come out a little bit differently," Ferguson said.

Reporting on progress

Saskatchewan doesn't publish findings on its own emissions because the province relieson the numbers from the federal report.

Only six out of 12 provinces and territories are reporting regularly to the public on emissions.

Relative to the emission numbers in 1990, Saskatchewan's have increased by over 50 per cent.

The economic sectors that were the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Saskatchewan were theoil and gas, agriculture and electricity sectors, according to the report.