climate change actions the key to kingston's future
how canada wins, part 5: kingston continues to try to address climate change but environmentalists say more needs to be done
4 minute read
kingston could adopt a local food procurement policy as a way to fight climate change, says organic farmer and author aric mcbay on howe island, ont.
elliot ferguson
/
the whig-standard
kingston — years ago, kingston had the goal of being canada’s most sustainable city.
not much is said about that these days, but the community continues to try to tackle climate change the best it can.
the city is doing much through its climate leadership division, a city department tasked with implementing a set of programs designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve energy and better prepare the municipality to handle the increasingly severe effects of climate change.
“we’re at the stage of climate change it’s not coming, it’s here. we’re dealing with the effects of it every year,” said geoff hendry, the chief operating officer of sustainable kingston, the city-funded agency that implements many of the municipal climate change programs, including the popular better homes kingston program.
the first phase of that program, which helps homeowners identify ways to make their houses more energy efficient and make upgrades, is expected to wrap up later this year but an expanded phase two is planned.
“i think the challenge for all of us that work in this space is to keep keep the message positive with regards to the very real solutions for mitigating climate change that are here,” hendry said. “the success that we’ve had in things like the better homes program and before it was canceled the canada greener homes grant, there’s proof of concept that if, in this case, homeowners are given some incentive they will voluntarily reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by significant amounts.”
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the city’s 2030 emissions reduction goal is 30 per cent below 2018 levels and carbon neutrality by 2040.
a pair of 2023 greenhouse gas emission inventory reports showed a 19-per-cent decrease in corporate emissions and a 5.4-per-cent decrease in community emissions from 2018 levels.
kingston transit is one area where the city has invested and is seeing success in lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
elliot ferguson
/
the whig-standard
when measured on a per capita basis — a new method for judging reductions — the corporate emissions decreased by 24.2 per cent and the community emissions dropped by 11.5 per cent.
earlier this year, city council received a report that showed it had fallen short of its 2022 greenhouse gas emission reduction target, which showed emissions had jumped after a pandemic-fuelled decline.
“the reality is that whenever it sort of becomes what we think is a second or third priority, we experience, either firsthand or we see not far away, a serious climate emergency, which is one of the reasons we’re putting some focus on adaptation and resilience,” hendry said.
“just when we think we’ve knocked it down a couple rungs on the priority ladder, it raises its ugly head again and we realized that it has to be the top priority for us because it impacts insurance and the economy and employment and everything else so dramatically now.”
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for climate activist and author aric mcbay, missing the 2022 greenhouse gas emission reduction target was made worse when city council declined to adopt tougher emission targets.
“i think there are some areas of promising action over the last few years, the city has invested more in public transportation,” mcbay said. “they’ve partnered with the indigenous food sovereignty garden on some of that some work east highway 15, but i think in general the city’s action on climate has really been lacking and that’s true even when you look at its own targets. the city has has failed to fulfill some of its own actions and its own targets.
“the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 in order to prevent catastrophic climate change, but kingston city council is only targeting a 30-per-cent reduction and has delayed making a decision about whether to raise that target.”
mcbay said the city should adopt a carbon budgeting system to guide its operations.
“carbon budgeting is really about recognizing that different kinds of economic activity have different impacts on the planet,” he said. “we need to figure out how much carbon do we have to spend and how are we going to allocate that in a way that benefits the public the most?
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“we should be looking at it the same way we look at financial budgeting. we should be saying, ‘here’s how much carbon we can emit without causing catastrophic damage to the planet. you need to figure out how to do that.'”
a carbon budget system could go as far as reducing the use of natural gas. mcbay said some municipalities have begun reducing the reliance on natural gas connections for new residential construction, something kingston city council has considered but not acted upon.
an easy way for the city to further climate action is to adopt a local food policy that prioritizes the purchase by municipal agencies of food grown near kingston.
such a policy would help local farmers, reduce emissions from transportation and create local jobs.
“the city has an opportunity to do things like bringing in local food procurement policies and partnering with institutions to encourage the city to buy more local food on an ongoing basis from kingston and countryside,” he said. “that’s going to benefit our community, that can recirculate money in our community, and it can make us more resilient to things like climate disasters, interruptions in international trade, and every uncertainty the future might hold.”
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the city recently adopted a plant based food policy meant to promote fruits and vegetables at city events.
climate change needs to be considered as kingston grows, environmentalists say.
elliot ferguson
/
the whig-standard
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