Sask. not reducing greenhouse gases

Premier Scott Moe’s argument that the Saskatchewan government should be allowed to decide on the best path for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, without a federal carbon tax, does not hold up to scrutiny.

It’s worth remembering that the Saskatchewan Party government promised in 2009 that it would achieve a 20-per-cent cut in provincewide greenhouse gas pollution levels by 2020.

Nine years later, Saskatchewan’s annual greenhouse gas emissions have not been reduced by a single percentage point. Instead, they have risen to 76 million tonnes annually.

For our population size, Saskatchewan’s levels of greenhouse gas pollution are now well over three times the Canadian average. Who can blame the federal government for deciding that our province should not be exempt from putting a price on carbon?

The world faces a climate crisis driven by the release of enormous quantities of heat-trapping, man-made greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The four hottest years globally since worldwide temperature records were first kept are 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

There has been a 46-percent increase in the frequency of extreme weather events worldwide since the year 2000.

The wildfire season is becoming longer and more deadly across the northern hemisphere, and a growing portion of the world’s population (30 per cent) now face prolonged, extreme heat waves.

Severe drought is an increasing risk for many regions. Climate stability — critical to the well-being of human civilization — is slipping away.

The Saskatchewan government’s unwillingness to accept a federal tax on a pollution source endangering humanity’s future is shameful.

Peter Prebble, Saskatoon