Ottawa falling behind on climate change action plan

While some progress is being made, Ottawa isn't meeting its own targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or increase climate change resiliency according to goals set out in the climate change master plan, the city's environment and climate change committee heard Tuesday.

"I'd probably give us a B," said Capital Coun. Shawn Menard, who chairs the environment committee, when asked what grade he would give Ottawa on climate change progress.

"There's a lot more work to be done here and I think our climate team recognizes that."

The city's climate change master plan was approved in 2020, aiming to reduce Ottawa's emissions and make the city more resilient to disasters like severe ice storms or last year's derecho.

Ottawa mostly 'off track' 

Staff said that seven of the plan's eight priorities have seen some progress, but most are labelled "off track" in the progress report, meaning they have not met deadlines set out when the plan was last updated in October 2021.

That delayed work includes creating a climate resiliency strategy and applying a climate lens to the new official plan, Tuesday's report said. 

Staff said they are making progress on most items and that some priorities simply need analysis or public consultations due to the scope of the work.

Consultations for the climate resiliency strategy, for example, are set to start at the end of April.

One of the delayed priority items, exploring carbon sequestration methods and the role of green infrastructure, has not started at all. 

Andrea Flowers, manager of the city's climate change and resiliency office, said part of the reason is because sequestration requires far more work than simply reducing emissions. Sequestration is the process of capturing carbon already in the environment, which could include planting forests.

"First we want to see how much of a difference can sequestration really make," said Flowers after Tuesday's meeting.

"Although it may help us in a net capacity, it's not going to help us in the actual reductions related to fossil fuel combustion."

The city is also lagging in its overall emission reduction targets set to align with what international scientists believe to be required to hold global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees.

Flowers said Ottawa likely won't meet its target of reducing community greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent by 2025, although she holds out hope the city can still reduce those by 68 per cent by 2030.

The main way the city is reducing greenhouse gas emissions is by encouraging the use of electric vehicles and retrofitting commercial and residential buildings, as well as diverting organic waste from landfills.

Flowers said new annual funding of $5 million for her office laid out in this year's budget will help make up some of the lost ground. 

Staff recommendations supported 

The environment committee unanimously supported several staff recommendations, including to lobby upper levels of government for more climate change funding and looking at the feasibility of setting carbon budgets for city departments to encourage climate accountability across city services.

Rideau-Jock Coun. David Brown dissented on the idea of a carbon budget, expressing scepticism that city operations like snow removal would be able to meet such a target.

The staff recommendations and report still require council approval.