With city staff saying London’s response to the climate emergency action plan last year was a mixed bag, proposals by a city councillor aim to set the Forest City more on track.
A little over one year after last term’s councillors approved the Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP), current councillors received a report on the progress being made at a strategic priorities and policy committee (SPPC) meeting Tuesday.
The report shows that some goals are on target to be met, while others remain a work in progress.
According to the report, just over 90 per cent of the 2022 action items set out in the CEAP have been initiated, with over 70 per cent of the total action items initiated.
Jay Stanford, the city’s director of environment and waste management, says there has been a lot of good progress from not only the city, but businesses and the community as well.
“In the last year, we’ve seen tremendous growth in things like EarthFest, more energy retrofits in homes and really good participation in the development of the city’s mobility masterplan,” said Stanford.
However, Stanford adds it is not all good news. According to the report, greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2022 compared to 2021. Stanford said there are numerous reasons, including people simply doing more activities in 2022 than in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People are out in their car more, consuming more fuel,” said Stanford. “They are getting involved more in the local economy. That’s good news financially, but… that actually increases greenhouse gas.”
Stanford says there are some increases that the city cannot control, including the increasing growth of London and the fact provincial electrical grids are using more natural gas than they were a few years ago.
While some areas are not controllable, Stanford says the emissions are still lower compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.
“We’re in this for short-term, medium-term and long-term objectives… what we’ve established in the first year is we have begun to grow our base,” said Stanford.
“There are some excellent things happening here in London, it’s just a matter of getting more people involved.”
Following the report’s presentation, Ward 11 Coun. Skylar Franke put forward four motions to have the city act as an example for the community in improving work toward sustainability.
The motions include developing training for current and future staff on aligning their work towards CEAP’s goals, providing update reports twice a year on CEAP and developing a net-zero emission plan so that city assets can achieve corporate targets by 2045.
A fourth motion requests that asset management projects like retrofits and rehabilitations be done in line with the net zero emissions goal of 2045.
“The last two are essentially just making sure our own fleet and facilities are in line with our own targets that we have set and agreed upon,” said Franke.
With all councillors on the SPPC, the motions passed 11-2, with two members absent.
Later in the meeting, Franke also introduced multiple business cases for consideration with an environmental focus. The business cases would be for consideration in the upcoming multi-year budget talks for 2024-2027.
In the end, only one business case passed, with the rest either pulled, referred or voted down on the basis that they were duplicating or very similar to matters already being worked on by staff.
The passed business case is to implement new funding for the Coves Silver Creek Restoration project.
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