19 months after council declared a climate emergency, admin is putting forth the final version of Edmonton’s climate action plan. They’re doing it the day after tomorrow! (Yes, I’m late on this.)

The Plan

The plan is called the Revised Community Energy Transition Strategy (it’s here, all 175 pages of it). And here’s the thing: it’s good. It’s really good.

• It organizes our opportunities to reduce CO2 into four big “pathways”:
  1. Renewable and Resilient Energy Transition (greening our electricity and heating)
  2. Emissions Neutral Buildings (insulation and good windows)
  3. Low Carbon City and Transportation (dense urban form, reducing car trips and increasing bike/walk/transit trips)
  4. Carbon Capture and Nature Based Solutions

The strategy takes a clear-eyed gaze into the challenges and opportunities that we face, and proposes real solutions. Here are some thoughts:

• • The way that our municipalities are set up in Canada, cities have the least amount of money (they receive only about 8% of every tax dollar).
  • Therefore, we will need dollars from the provincial and federal governments to move the plan along.
  • Our biggest lever, then, is #3 above: Low Carbon City and Transportation. That’s because Edmonton has a large degree of control over zoning and the allocation of our street space.
  • For more details, I tweeted about the plan last Sunday.

Help Us Take Action

So, this plan goes to council on Monday. You can make a difference in two ways:

1. Email your councillor. (see below)
2. Speak to council on Monday, April 12. (virtually)
   • The report will go to Executive Committee at 9:30am. Unfortunately, you can’t know exactly when you’ll be called upon. However, if you are registered and aren’t available when your turn comes up, there’s no downside (so if you can, you should try and speak!).
   • Presentations to council are very powerful. This is your most impactful action.
   • To register to speak, email [email protected] or (better) call them on Monday morning (780-496-8178). They are very accommodating, and they will give you instructions on addressing council.

Emailing Your Councillor (type your postal code below and add your own personal message)

Transportation is responsible for about one third of greenhouse gas emissions in Edmonton¹. 78% of trips are taken in SUVs (and cars)². And Edmonton needs to reduce its transportation emissions by about 90% to reach its goals. The city has two main strategies:

• Strategy #1: Increase the number of bus/bike/walk trips from about 22% to 50% of all trips by 2040³. 
• Strategy #2: Convert the other 50% of trips to electric cars, powered by a green electricity grid (the City doesn’t mention a timeline).

50% of trips by bus/bike/walk, the other 50% by electric car. The concept is simple, and we have all the tools, but as any city watcher will tell you, the politics around transportation in Edmonton are…complicated.

How big is the challenge of making 50% of trips climate-friendly in the next 19 years? 

• Edmonton residents made 2.45 million SUV/car trips per weekday in 2015 (source) 
• We made another roughly 700,000 walk/bike/transit trips per weekday. 
• To achieve our climate goals:
  • SUV/car trips need to remain the same from now on. They’ve peaked!
  • All of the new growth in weekday trips, about 1.6 million new trips, needs to be in walk, bike, or transit trips (). 

If we want to meet our climate goals, this transformation of how we move around has to happen in the next 19 years. Questions abound. How do we make non-car modes more desirable? And what about the other side of the coin, dare we make car trips ever so slightly less desirable? If future posts, we will explore both questions. And we’ll talk about electric cars too. They can help, but maybe not as much as we think.

References

1. Revising Edmonton’s Community Energy Transition Strategy, November 2020, page 9
2. 2015 Edmonton and Region Household Travel Survey – released April 2018, page 31
3. Revising Edmonton’s Community Energy Transition Strategy, November 2020

(Flickr/ Nick Humphries)In 2018, the IPCC declared that the world has a remaining carbon budget of 420 billion tonnes for us to have a 67% chance of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It was a desperate last call by the world’s scientific community, and thankfully it provoked a reaction. 2019 was the most important year of climate action that the world has ever known, as people around the world rose up to demand that we meet the difficult yet achievable goals. Edmonton declared a climate emergency in 2019, and started developing an ambitious plan to stay withing its climate targets. So where are we at?

In short, we’re in a tight spot. Edmonton can still, just barely, live within our carbon budget.  Furthermore, we can do it while still maintaining our high quality of life. In fact, we can increase equity, biodiversity, clean air and clean water at the same time. Every tonne of CO2 that we avoid emitting is a victory, and we can make our communities stronger while we are at it.

Edmonton has taken some good steps towards our goals, but more needs to be done, and faster.

Edmonton’s Climate Moves, 2018 – 2020

Here’s a recap of what Edmonton has done on the climate change file:

• 2018
  • Edmonton signs the Edmonton Declaration, a relatively obscure pledge signed by North American mayors. It commits Edmonton to take action in line with a 1.5 degree worldwide temperature increase.
  • Edmonton orders 40 electric buses.
• 2019
  • Edmonton declares a climate emergency.
  • Edmonton releases “Getting To 1.5°C“, a high-level but realistic and solutions-oriented planning document. It outlines our remaining (as of January, 2019) carbon budget of 155,000,000 tonnes (155 Mtonnes). Without drastic change, we will exceed that budget in 2027 or so.
•  2020
  • Edmonton city council cancels the very popular (to its 700 participants) and very hated (by wedge-issue councillors) $55,000/year e-bike rebate program.
  • Edmonton releases another climate change report. This one is somehow more vague than the one from 2019 after a year of work (?).
  • Edmonton eliminates parking minimums and adopts the City Plan, two progressive, climate-friendly moves that illustrate that climate change is an “everything, everywhere” kind of issue, and that there are many solutions to this deep, complex problem.

The above is not exhaustive, but it gives a quick overview of where we are. Although we’ve made some good moves, our official climate plan is pretty stalled out. Council took none of the “accelerated actions” put forth by administration in November of 2020. As we enter 2021, the climate change file is in need of some urgency and innovative thinking by the City of Edmonton. And this year is an election year, a time when administration goes into “risk hibernation”, avoiding anything out of the ordinary out of fear of the upcoming change in leadership.

This is the first post of a series that will outline what climate action Edmonton has promised, and what actions it needs to take, and when, to live up to its promises.

We are in a climate emergency, and we need action now. But first, what’s the scale of the problem, and in what areas can take the most effective climate actions? We’ll talk about that in our next post.…