‘A now problem’: Councillors look at bolstering Victoria climate plan ambitions

Council has unanimously supported direction spurred by their peers on potentially heightening Victoria’s ambitions and targets for addressing climate change.

Subject to a procedural vote in two weeks, city staff will look into the resource implications of boosting the Climate Leadership Plan’s ambition and increasing efforts on meeting climate targets through a series of proposals.

The direction was spurred by a motion from Couns. Jeremy Caradonna and Dave Thompson that was passed at the March 2 committee of the whole meeting, directing staff to report back within six months.

The city has fallen from its position as a climate leader and is now off track in terms of meeting some current emission and adaption targets, Caradonna said.

“From atmospheric rivers to extreme heat days, our city has experienced the impacts of climate change,” he said. “Climate change is no longer a future problem, it’s a now problem.”

The councillors also hope to learn what climate change has, and is projected to, cost the city financially.

Caradonna wants to implement a type of emission tracking that’s already envisioned in the current climate plan and would move towards a more fulsome accounting of greenhouse gases by tracking Victoria’s embodied emissions. Embodied, or consumption-based, emission tracking takes into account all GHGs produced by the food, energy and products people consume, rather than just the emissions generated within city boundaries.

The motion calls for staff to look at tracking and setting reduction targets for consumption-based emissions, while putting a short-term focus on the built environment’s lifecycle GHGs.

Other proposals the motion wants staff to examine include: committing to a circular economy by 2050 while adapting waste-reduction measures around that target; creating an annual declining carbon budget for both the city’s community and corporate emissions that would have measures kick in when those yearly limits are exceeded; and undertaking natural asset assessments and enhanced climate emergency planning.

The councillors also want the city to expedite its phase-out date for oil tanks – which about 550 homes are still using in the city – from 2030 to 2027.

Residents in recent years exhausted a $400,000 city program that gave homeowners a top-up to the thousands in heat pump incentives they can receive from upper levels of government.

Noting he took advantage of the city program to rid his home of an oil tank system, Coun. Matt Dell said it’s frustrating they’re still around and council may need to do something ambitious to help the transition.

“Oil tanks should’ve been out of our city many years ago,” he said.

READ: Victoria councillors hoping city can expedite zero-carbon mandate for new buildings