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Final draft of Community Sustainability Plan tabled for Council approvals

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Community’s vision for its future emphasizes education and creativity, a growing sustainable economy, and environmental leadership

A year and a day after the Community Sustainability Plan Steering Committee was announced, the final draft of Oxford’s first-ever Community Sustainability Plan was tabled—and endorsed– at County Council as the first in a series of council presentations that will continue at local area municipalities over the coming weeks.

Future Oxford: A Community Sustainability Plan sets out the community’s vision for how we will manage human (community), natural (environmental) and financial (economic) resources for Oxford County’s future growth and wellbeing.
The final draft Plan, which can be viewed at FutureOxford.ca, sets out 70 distinct actions including:
• reducing the percentage of Oxford County residents living in poverty;
• increasing the number of residents with post-secondary education;
• increasing participation in arts, recreation, and culture activities;
• growing jobs relative to population growth;
• encouraging production and consumption of locally produced food and products; and
• achieving the highest total waste diversion rate per capita in Ontario.

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Pathway to Paris #11: Where are we after the Bonn talks?

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A biweekly climate briefing for municipalities

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In this Issue #11

  • The last two weeks

  • UN preparatory meeting in the lead up to Paris

  • Countries issue their national targets

  • How can towns and cities contribute to a fair and ambitious climate deal in Paris?

  • New GHGProof pilot

  • Climate vulnerability monitor

  • Climate Publishers Network

  • Featured network: The Climate Vulnerability Network

A very eventful two weeks

It has been two weeks since the last newsletter and it seems like a generation, as everything is shifting very quickly. The G7 outlined a plan to phase out fossil fuels by 2100. While this plan is likely insufficient to prevent dangerous climate change, it is the first time that many key leaders have used the word decarbonisation, a shift in the discourse and a signal to investors, as the Guardian describes. Other unanticipated pronouncements: the CEOs of Europe’s largest oil companies including Shell, BP, BG Group, Eni, Statoil and Total wrote to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change requesting an international price on carbon. Chevron and ExxonMobil did not sign the letter. For those of you with kids (or otherwise), check out the Climate Hope City built in Minecraft. The Pope is about to issue an encyclical on climate change. Newspapers launched a pioneering effort to share stories on climate change. A study found that Canada’s GHG emissions cost the world 8,800 lives and $15.4 Billion every year. An IMF analysis found that fossil fuel subsidies totalled $4.9 trillion (6.5 percent of global GDP) in 2013. Eliminating these subsidies in 2015 could raise government revenue by $2.9 trillion (3.6 percent of global GDP), cut global CO2 emissions by more than 20 percent, and cut premature air pollution deaths by more than half.

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Halton Hills Council Approves our Local Action Plan

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Last year, we started a project in collaboration with Indeco to work with Halton Hills on their local action plan. SSG managed and wrote the Community Energy Plan, Indeco the Corporate Energy Plan. Using GHGProof, we examined community wide energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from transportation and land use. Here is the recent release issued by the Council: Read more

Webinar: Innovative ways to finance climate change and energy initiatives in municipalities.

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Yuill was asked to join this panel for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to share innovative ways to finance climate change and energy initiatives in municipalities.

The panel was on: Developing and financing actions or strategies to achieve community energy and emission plans (CEEPs); evaluating the economic and employment impacts of a CEEP.

Innovative financing tools have boosted local climate change and energy initiatives in many Canadian municipalities. Using alternatives to traditional mechanisms, these municipalities have found flexible ways to implement programs in a cost-effective and practical manner. In a recent webinar, PCP members heard about the City of Nelson’s EcoSave energy retrofit program that encourages improvements to household energy efficiency. Other examples include the City of Yellowknife and the District of Saanich, and their approaches to establishing capital reserves and carbon funds as a dedicated revenue source for municipal energy initiatives.

Joining Yuill were: Ryan Schmidt, Manager, Energy and Solid Waste, Township of Langley, BC
 and Gabriella Kalapos, Executive Director, Clean Air Partnership

You can watch and listen here:
https://cullbridge.adobeconnect.com/_a782512023/p6pg344151h/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal