Premier Scott Moe is standing by his comments where he said that he ”doesn’t care that the province has the highest carbon emissions per capita.’
Moe clarified that he does care about the province being an environmental leader. However, he does not believe measuring the province’s carbon emissions per capita is fair.
“Per capita emissions is the wrong metric. I would put forward that anyone that is talking about per capita emissions really doesn’t care about climate change in any way. What they are trying to do is score cheap political points,” he said. “What I was doing was making a mockery of using that metric of emissions per capita. It’s absolutely a ridiculous metric to be using.”
The Premier’s comments were first made in the Prince Alberty Daily Herald when fielding questions at a Prince Albert Chamber of Commerce event last Friday.
Moe did acknowledge that he could have used ‘less controversial’ words s but said that the province’s emission levels are due to the demand for Saskatchewan products.
“It has no bearing on reality; we export over 65 percent of the products that we produce here in Saskatchewan; we don’t actually consume them ourselves. People consume them in other areas of the world,” he said. “If someone is going to use the emissions per capita method, I don’t think anyone should pay any attention to that. It isn’t going to do anything to reduce emissions anywhere in the world.”
Saskatchewan was ranked as having the highest per capita emissions n Canada in 2019. The province contributed to 10.3 per cent of Canada’s total emissions despite making up only three per cent of the country’s population.