REGINA - Premier Scott Moe had an upbeat message about the province’s participation in the Conference of Parties 28 in Dubai.
“The first couple of days have gone well,” said Moe, speaking to reporters by conference call from the Saskatchewan Pavilion in Dubai. He pointed to good attendance and interest there from participants at the United Nations' global climate change conference.
One of the highlights Moe pointed to from the pavilion on Wednesday was the signing there of a memorandum of understanding by Saskatchewan Polytechnic, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina to establish the framework for collaboration on a new Saskatchewan-based institution called the Global Institute for Energy, Mines and Society.
According to the province’s news release Wednesday, the purpose is to provide post-secondary institutions a practical and effective way to collaborate on research and innovation in the mining and energy sector.
Dr. Jeff Keshen, President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Regina, Dr. Peter Stoicheff, President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan, and Dr. Larry Rosia, President and CEO of Saskatchewan Polytechnic, were all on hand in Dubai to sign the MOU in the Saskatchewan Pavilion Wednesday.
Another highlight Moe pointed to was the Fireside Chat on Western Canada solutions to Energy Transition. That was hosted earlier Wednesday at the Saskatchewan Pavilion and included Moe, Premier Danielle Smith of Alberta, and former Premier Christy Clark of British Columbia. It was moderated by Jean Charest, former Premier of Quebec and former federal Minister of Environment.
Premier Moe called it “the busiest session we had,” and that “literally the pavilion was full and spilling out into the alleyways everywhere. It was by far I think the most popular dialogue that we had.” Moe also said it was good for him personally “to have that historical perspective” from the former Premiers.
Moe was asked about what he would consider concrete measures of success to come out of COP28. One item he pointed to, which he said was a function of the broader Saskatchewan delegation being there, was the agreement by 24 countries “to triple the nuclear power footprint in the world. That’s moving from 400 nuclear reactors, zero-carbon nuclear reactors today, to likely a thousand to 1200 nuclear reactors in the future.”
“We know the role Saskatchewan is playing not only in fueling those reactors with our four uranium companies and many, many northern and Indigenous communities that are involved in that industry in Saskatchewan, but also more recently involved in the actual nuclear power and nuclear delivery services as well.”
He also pointed to “great engagement directly with the energy industry, the oil producing industry yesterday as well… We’re very happy with the engagement thus far and really looking forward to the next number of days.”
The message on how to sustainably produce agriculture products has also gone out at the Saskatchewan pavilion. Moe said communicating the message of “how we are producing in this case our agricultural products is the reason for the pavilion that you see behind me today, hosting three four five plenary sessions a day on those types of items.”
Moe said each day has a theme, and as the week unfolds they intend to get to talking more about those agricultural items.
As for potash, Saskatchewan was “telling the how, on how we’re producing those products,” pointing to potash producing 50 percent lower carbon footprint than the next largest around the world. He called it not only high quality product but also the most sustainable.
Moe had indicated last week that he planned to meet with federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. He indicated in the conference call was that meeting would likely happen that evening.
As for the costs of the Saskatchewan presence at COP28, with $765,000 for the pavilion itself and $238,000 for advertising. Moe said the only incremental cost was for the pavilion itself, but the advertising cost comes out of their existing budget for national and international engagement.
“We have focused much of that budget on building towards our presence at COP28,” said Moe, who emphasized the Saskatchewan Pavilion was there for direct engagement with delegates there.
