New industry standards next step in prairie Resilience Climate Change Strategy

The Government of Saskatchewan continues to implement key commitments made in the province's climate change plan to help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and maintain a competitive economy.

As part of the made-in-Saskatchewan Prairie Resilience strategy, government has developed new output-based performance standards that will apply to more than 40 Saskatchewan industrial facilities.

These facilities generate 11 per cent (or approximately 8.5 million tonnes) of total provincial emissions and are expected to reduce that portion by a total of 10 per cent by 2030. These measures are in addition to previously announced reductions in electricity generation (40 per cent) and methane from upstream oil and gas (40 per cent).

"Reductions in these three key areas will reduce emissions by 12 megatonnes of greenhouse gases each year by 2030," Environment Minister Dustin Duncan said. "Our bold and innovative system-wide strategy is designed to responsibly and tangibly reduce emissions without the imposition of an economy-wide carbon tax."

Saskatchewan's performance standards will increase over an established schedule from 2019 to 2030, cumulatively reducing GHG emissions by 5.3 million tonnes. The sectorspecific performance standards are expected to achie e the following emissions intensity reductions:

-Potash, coal and uranium mining (5 per cent)

-Iron and steel mills (5 per cent) -Fertilizer manufacturing (5 per cent) - Pulp mills (5 per cent) -Ethanol production (5 per cent) -Refining and upgrading (10 per cent) -Upstream oil and gas - combustion only (15 per cent)

Saskatchewan facilities will be able to choose from a suite of flexible compliance options including offset credits, best performance credits and a technology fund.

See also: http://www.saskatchewan.ca/climatechange#utm_campaign=q2_2015&utm_ medium=short&utm_source=%2Fclim ate-change