P.A. leading the way in Sask. for net zero goals

Prince Albert has a busy construction season coming up, which Dionne sees as an opportunity.

“I think it’s time with all the construction and everything else that’s happening in our city that we have an opportunity to work towards – and you notice the motion says work towards – net zero,” said Dionne.

His plan has multiple steps (or pillars), the first being a detailed strategy of what they are going to do.

The next pillar is to find out what the current emissions are and then detail how they can reach the goal through policies or project requirements.

Lastly, they will put the plan into action.

Council also talked about some of the things that are already done, such as changing facilities to LED lighting and making the new rink/pool project as green as possible.

Coun. Terra Lennox-Zepp chose to speak in favour as well but read from a letter from the Sask. Environmental Association warning against focusing too much on steps like planting trees while not paying enough attention to things like reducing actual fossil fuel consumption.

She said there is more the city can do, such as making sure compostable items don’t end up in the landfill and changing its vehicle fleet to electric.

In its last budget, the City opted to buy three electric ice re-surfacers.

Coun. Don Cody said a balance needs to be struck between being cautious and moving forward.

“I wouldn’t be very cautious about planting trees because we haven’t been very good at it,” he said.

In his opinion, it should be legislated that every tree cut down by the city should be replaced by two or three more, but he also said forestry activities are needed.

“The good Lord will take the forest if we don’t take it. And we should be taking it and we should be planting trees in its place,” he said.

Cody went on to apply the analogy to using coal as a primary energy source and stated that modern technology should be able to find a way to use coal while reducing the amount of emissions from burning it.

“We can fly to Mars but we can’t clean coal to make energy? There’s something wrong up here or with the scientific world,” he said.

“Maybe someone just had the idea that I don’t like coal or I don’t like its producers so I’m just going to be against coal and that’s it.”

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

P.A. leading the way in Sask. for net zero goals

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