City staff investigating possibility of Kelowna gas tax

Kelowna residents love their cars but they produce greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to global warming, leading to extreme weather such as last spring’s devastating floods.

According to a City of Kelowna staff report presented to council Monday, as greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, extreme weather events are expected to become the norm in the Okanagan.

The report says Kelowna residents produced more than 640,000 tonnes of carbon in 2012.

Most of that carbon came from vehicles while the rest was from buildings and waste at the landfill.

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We also spend a bundle on energy. The most available stats show Kelowna residents and businesses spent more than $340 million on energy in 2012. That works out to nearly $3000 a year per person.

But the report says it doesn’t have to be that way — that Kelowna residents can do something about it.

Two of the items up for investigation include implementing a no-idling policy.

“If it did happen I imagine it would be something like our pesticide bylaw — a complaint based bylaw where you would go out if someone is complaining that your neighbour is running his vehicle for 10-20 minutes, then something can be done,” Tracy Guidi, co-author of the report said.

Another proposal would mean council would no longer approve drive-thrus, but one of the most controversial recommendations that council is being asked to investigate is a gas tax.

“It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight and it may not happen at all,” Guidi said.

The next step is consultations with stakeholders and the public on the report in early 2018 before is goes back to council.