As the ample amount of evidence spells out, there’s no scientific contention that climate change is to blame for the severe weather patterns Saskatchewan, Canada and the rest of the world are experiencing. It’s one of the biggest emergencies of our time and it’s wreaking havoc on the globe.
“The United States has massive areas under heat warnings with exceptional heat that put people at risk and over 1,000 people have died recently in Europe from the heat,” explained John Pomeroy with the University of Saskatchewan, Canada Research Chair in Water Resources and Climate Change.
“So, when you look at all of that and think that Saskatchewan is getting on light with few storms, but our storms have been very severe because of the extra energy in the atmosphere,” he added.
Pomeroy further explains how the province is being impacted.
“Saskatchewan unfortunately has seen all of the manifestations of climate change and we sort of fluctuate from drought to flood to storm within a year, or year to year, and that’s been happening more frequently to a greater degree,” he stated.
“As well as the storms we’re getting last longer, the wet periods last longer and the dry periods last longer.”
Pomeroy said the number of long storms in Saskatchewan increased by 50 per cent since the 1960s.
Recently, insured losses are amounting between $2 to 5 billion in Canada each year. In the 1980s, that amount was around a quarter of a billion dollars per year, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
Lives, homes, communities and natural settings such as forests are being lost to climate change at an alarming rate, with both insured and uninsured losses tallying up.
Here in Saskatchewan, the province appears to be making strides in measuring its climate response accordingly.
“The 2022 resilience report is actually part of Saskatchewan’s prairie resilience strategy which makes 40 commitments to address climate change and it’s one of those commitments to monitor and report on the province’s resilience to climate change,” said Aaron Wirth, Saskatchewan Climate Resilience Branch executive director.
Wirth further explains that the province has made targets to protect five keys areas such as natural systems, physical infrastructures, the economy, community preparedness and human well-being. The province has been able to meet most of its targets in these different areas.
The United Nations (UN) has indicated that global greenhouse gas emissions need will peak before 2025 at the latest, and must be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030 in order for irreversible climate catastrophe to be averted. At the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third.
According to the UN, from 2010-2019, average annual global greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history, however the rate of growth has slowed.
An increasing array of policies and laws have improved energy efficiency, reduced rates of deforestation and accelerated the deployment of renewable energy,
Pomeroy underscored that it’s basically do or die for the planet right now as it comes down to trying to reverse climate change, which he adds is why collective action from different provinces and countries alike is more crucial than ever before.
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