Saskatchewan’s climate change strategy, known as Prairie Resilience is getting a new measurement framework.
It includes 25 measures to help monitor and enhance provincial resilience to climate change.
It’s something Environment Minister Dustin Duncan says will show the public Saskatchewan is serious about dealing with climate change.
“It’s a message to the federal government, it's a message to the people of Saskatchewan, we have a plan,” Minister of Environment Dustin Duncan said.
The government says the program will help the province cope with, adapt to and recover from stress and change. This includes the ability of natural systems (land, water and forests), physical infrastructure, economic sustainability, community preparedness, and the well-being of people to adapt and thrive in a low-carbon economy and changing environmental conditions, such as extreme weather or flooding.
Critics say it is work that should have been done years ago.
"Most of these measures are dealing with Saskatchewan’s response or adaptation to climate change. Not actually about addressing our greenhouse gas footprint,” Environment Critic Yens Pedersen.
Included in the framework, a percentage of agricultural land area will have a nutrient stewardship plan, which matches the right source and rate of fertilizer to the right time and place of application.
It will also measure greenhouse gas emissions from government-owned buildings, provincial forest harvest designs and Floodplain mapping for at-risk communities.
Duncan says the government will begin introducing the new measures sometime in the next year.
