Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in the Yukon increased by 24 per between 2009 and 2019, says the annual report on the state of the territory’s environment.

The report was tabled in the legislature last week by Environment Minister Nils Clarke. It touches upon many aspects of the environment.

A press release issued by the minister says: “The Yukon is experiencing the continued effects of climate change with substantial decreases in sea ice year after year and increasing precipitation and temperatures.”

In addition to trends in GHG emissions, the report looks at long-term precipitation and temperature variation in the Yukon, as well as the extent and volume of Arctic sea ice.

“The observed and predicted rate and magnitude of temperature change in Yukon is among the highest in Canada,” says the report.

It says less and less Arctic Sea ice is remaining from one year to the next, and the ice that lasts more than one season is thinning significantly.

If the trend continues, the summer sea ice will be nearly non-existent across the Arctic by the end of the century.

“This has wide-ranging implications for the Arctic and the globe, including increased coastal erosion, changes to atmospheric circulation in distant locations, damage to human infrastructure and negative impacts on species that depend on sea ice,” says the report.

It says the Yukon’s total GHG emissions in 2019 were 783 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Of the total, 72 per cent was generated by transportation, with half coming from passenger vehicles and half from commercial and industrial transportation.

The report says after transportation, space heating from fuel and propane was the next-highest source of emissions, at 15 per cent.

The generation of electricity accounted for four per cent of emissions in the territory.

Emissions per capita equalled 18.9 tonnes per person, ranking the Yukon sixth among the country’s 13 jurisdictions.

“Canada is ranked amongst the highest of all countries in the world in terms per-capita submissions,” says the report.

Canadians produced 730,000 kilotonnes of CO emissions in 2019, about 21 per cent above 1990 levels, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The Yukon’s emissions contributed 0.1 per cent of Canada’s total.

There are 131 recommendations to reduce GHGs contained in the government’s document Our Clean Future: A Yukon strategy for climate change, energy and a green economy.

“It also includes actions that Indigenous and municipal partners will undertake to work toward our collective goals and objectives,” says the report.

Among the “ambitious” targets contained in Our Clean Future is a 45 per cent reduction in GHGs from transportation, heating, electricity generation and other areas.

It calls for 97 per cent of the territory’s electricity to be generated by renewable energy by 2030.

The targets include net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“The 2021 Yukon State of the Environment report shows environmental trends affecting everything from water quality to forest health in the territory,” Clarke said.

“The state of our environment is something that is important to all of us. By paying close attention to the impacts of climate change and the actions we can take to prevent it, we will better protect our environment for future generations to come.”

The Yukon has been preparing state of the environment reports since 1995.

There have been a number of significant changes observed with the Yukon’s environment, both positive and negative, the report notes.

For example, 33 per cent of waste was diverted from the Whitehorse landfill through recycling and composting in 2019.

Conversely, the spawning escapement goal for the Yukon River chinook salmon was not met, with an estimate of just under 31,000 fish reaching their spawning grounds in the Yukon.

This was the second time the spawning escapement goal was not achieved since 2013.