This article was published by The Energy Mix on June 6, 2024.
By Gaye Taylor
Canadian municipalities will need to shift their climate response plans into action and results if they mean to align with the country’s net-zero by 2050 target, a comprehensive survey of local climate plans concludes.
Across Canada, municipalities need to adopt and take action on ambitious net-zero goals, with action in mid-to-large size municipalities having “an important impact on achievement of national targets,” writes [pdf] the survey team at the Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership (N-ZAP), a collaboration between the University of Waterloo, 11 other universities, national organizations like the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and ICLEI Canada, and various cities and towns.
Of 256 polled municipalities representing 69.5 per cent of the total Canadian population, only 27 per cent (62 municipalities) had pledged to achieve net-zero corporate emissions by 2050 or earlier—a target for reducing the emissions a municipality directly controls from its buildings, fleets, and energy use. And only 25.1 per cent (55 municipalities) had set a target of net-zero by 2050 or earlier for community emissions from activities like residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, transportation, and community energy and electricity use.
N-ZAP called for improved emissions monitoring, more meaningful engagement with Indigenous rightsholders and governments, and a sharper focus on interventions that have the highest impact on reducing emissions. And it’s showing its work, posting the data on an open-source database.
Conducted between June and September 2023, the survey was open to all Canadian municipalities and will be repeated in 2027 to measure progress. It covered towns and cities from all 10 provinces but not yet in the territories.
“This limitation notwithstanding, the distribution of participating municipalities provides a fairly accurate portrait of Canada, with the majority of responses coming from Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia,” N-ZAP says.
Strong On Plans, Weak On Progress
Among the respondents, 162 municipalities (63.3 per cent) had developed climate action plans, 131 (51.2 per cent) had set targets for reducing corporate emissions, and 119 (46.5 per cent) had targets for community emissions.
But only 30 per cent of those targets were aligned with Canada’s net-zero by 2050 target, N-ZAP found, and implementation has been slow.
At the time of the survey, “only 21.8 per cent of respondents had made progress towards achieving their corporate targets, and only 15.6 per cent had made progress towards achieving their community targets.”
On average, 70 per cent of municipalities across the country have either implemented or are working on a climate action plan. In British Columbia and the Maritimes, 100 per cent have plans. Elsewhere, that figure stands at 93 per cent in Ontario, 80 per cent in Manitoba, 73 per cent in Quebec, and 71 per cent in Alberta. Only 33 per cent of municipalities in Saskatchewan have climate plans in place.
Large municipalities with populations over 100,000 showed a “notably higher” inclination to adopt plans corporate and community emissions targets, the survey found. Some 39 per cent of large municipalities had set corporate emissions targets, compared to six to 12 per cent of smaller municipalities with populations below 30,000. More than three-quarters of large municipalities had set community emissions targets, compared to only 18 per cent of communities with populations under 10,000.
“These findings demonstrate the need for more resources and training targeting small and medium-sized communities, focusing on collaborative approaches to establishing community emissions goals and working towards achieving them,” N-ZAP writes.
Inventories Support Progress
Out of the respondents, 136 municipalities (53.1 per cent) had created GHG emissions inventories. “Overall, 84.2 per cent of large municipalities, 59.0 per cent of mid-size municipalities, and 38.0 per cent of small municipalities had created GHG inventories,” N-ZAP writes, with larger municipalities once again more likely to take stock of their emissions.
The report finds that keeping an inventory supports progress towards emissions targets. “Among the municipalities tracking their GHG emissions, 33 were making progress toward their corporate emissions targets, 17 had made progress in achieving their community targets, and 23 had made progress towards their combined targets,” N-ZAP writes. But many the municipalities have not been updating their community emissions inventories on a regular basis.
The survey asked municipalities to specify the activity sectors where they were taking steps to reduce GHG emissions. The responses pointed to buildings, energy, transport, and waste, sectors where they have most control, N-ZAP writes. “In contrast, agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) and industrial process and product use (IPPU) were the sectors reported least by the participating municipalities.”
The communities consistently engaged with staff and elected officials to plan and implement local climate actions, N-ZAP writes. But not as much with neighbourhood associations or non-profits, Indigenous rightsholders, or other levels of government. The report calls that “an important gap at both the planning and the implementation levels.”
N-ZAP says its analysis of climate interventions across activity sectors shows that “local governments are predominantly relying on policy levers that promote voluntary action to reduce community GHG emissions,” with awareness building and education among the most frequently-adopted. But those voluntary measures may fall short of “instigating the level of changes needed for widespread emissions reductions.” That means more support is needed to allow municipalities to undertake “robust interventions within activity sectors beyond their direct control.”
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