Community Climate Action Plan lumbers forward

News 100 greenBy Pepper Parr

March 11th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The citizens of the city got an opportunity to have their say on how Climate Change was going to be managed. More than seventeen delegated at city hall earlier this week.

We are looking at a 30 year challenge during which everyone is going to have to change the way they do some things.

neutral - what will it take

52,000 homes will need to be retrofitted in the next ten years; 100% of new vehicles purchase in ten years to be electric; 50% of all vehicles to be electric. Is this actually possible?

The City Action Plan has seven sections – with three getting the immediate focus.

Program areas

The red bars are the immediate thrust.

The seven are:

1.Low Carbon New Buildings
2.Deep Energy Retrofit Program (existing buildings)
3.Renewable Energy Co-operative
4.Integrated Mobility Initiatives
5.Electric Mobility & equipment
6.Waste Reduction
7.Industry

The very lengthy report in which the challenge and the plan was set has the feel of something written by lawyers with numerous provisos.

This analysis has been undertaken to identify a low carbon energy pathway for the community of Burlington.

Reasonable skill, care and diligence have been exercised to assess the information acquired during the preparation of this analysis, but no guarantees or warranties are made regarding the accuracy or completeness of this information. This document, the information it contains, the information and basis on which it relies, and factors associated with implementation of the pathway are subject to changes that are beyond the control of the authors.

The information provided by others is believed to be accurate, but has not been verified.

The population and employment projections that inform the analysis are based on information from the June 26, 2015 Region Official Plan Consolidation to 2031 at the time the document was published, and further projections from 2031 to 2050 are an estimate for the purpose of the Burlington Climate Action Plan, and were developed by the authors of this report for this exercise, and do not constitute projections for the purposes of land use planning.

This analysis includes high level estimates of costs and revenues that should not be relied upon for design or other purposes without verification.

Bus as us - lc

BAU is Business as Usual; LC is low carbon, The challenge is in the graph.

Of the seven parts to the Plan, three are the focus at this point in time

1.Low Carbon NewBuildings
2.Deep Energy RetrofitProgram (existingbuildings)
3.Renewable Energy Co-operative

The bigger picture will be supported by a lot of community engagement. The work that has to be done cannot be done by staff at city hall alone.
This is an all hands on deck exercise

While it is a world-wide problem it comes down to what each household does. The role of the city of Burlington is to be the Organizer –capacity builder, Collaborator, Community engagement –education & awareness champion, Leading by example, processing permits & approvals, advocacy –senior levels of government, programs, incentives, regulator & funder

How this will all come together:
City Staff will lead; there will be a Stakeholder Advisory Committee, three Task Teams: Energy Retrofits; Renewable Energy and Electric Mobility & Equipment.
Partnerships will include Bay Area Climate Change Office/Council–Halton Climate Collective–Clean Air Partnership & Council–QUEST–The Atmospheric Fund Implementation Structure

Robichaud 3 Mar 10-20

Lynn Robichaud

The objective is to make Burlington a carbon neutral community

Lynn Robichaud, serves as the Senior Sustainability Coordinator

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