Political realities temper Newmarket's efforts on climate change

Council needs to hear about your climate concerns

How is our town's progress in fighting climate change?

As one who has been talking, teaching and writing about climate change for over 30 years, I am frustrated that governments everywhere are doing too little to reduce the amount of carbon pollution we cause. In Canada, the federal and provincial governments don’t seem to take climate change seriously, even though it is the biggest threat ever faced by humanity.

So what about the municipal level? How is Newmarket doing? Do we care enough? Are we doing enough? Are we moving fast enough?

At council direction, the staff in Newmarket’s climate, environment and sustainability recently produced an information report, which is available on the town website (search for Fossil Fuel Treaty). Personally, I find it important that the town has staff dedicated to “climate, environment and sustainability”; I have found them knowledgeable, dedicated and committed. 

Their report details many things that the town has already done on the climate front, in line with the council’s environmental sustainability priority, and makes recommendations on what Newmarket could do to take its climate actions forward.

The town has been working on three main climate-related projects: The Community Energy Plan (CEP), Green Development Standards (GDS) and Corporate Green Fleet Strategy. To learn about them, go to the Town’s Hey Newmarket website

(heynewmarket.ca) and search for Community Energy Plan Update. At the bottom, there are links to the three initiatives. Space does not allow me to go into these in full detail.

So, here is a brief description of the projects; my critiques follow.

The Community Energy Plan is intended to reduce environmental and climate impacts caused by our continued reliance on fossil fuels. It lays out targets for specific sectors, mainly buildings, transportation and decomposition of organic waste in landfill. Of the three, this one covers by far the largest part of our climate pollution.

The Green Development Standards are planned to make sure that the designing and building of our communities consider sustainability and climate change. The GDS should help the local economy and households be more resilient. This is a new initiative in Newmarket, though there are many GTHA municipalities that already have GDS in place. 

The Green Fleet Strategy aims to identify ways to cut the greenhouse gas emissions of the town’s vehicle fleet and equipment. 

Much of this reflects what Climate Action Newmarket-Aurora (CANA) has been calling for, so we applaud the initiatives. However, we want to see each of the initiatives show more ambition in the approach to climate change. Here are a few specifics:

The CEP says its low-carbon scenario is a “blue sky” pathway, while saying it has the “scale and intensity needed to transition to a low carbon community…” Business As Planned is highlighted as the way forward because it is “realistic”. This is in spite of the report’s data showing BAP as insufficient to do what is needed, hardly better than Business As Usual. But how is it “realistic” to do less than everything we can to save ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and all future generations from the sort of misery we see climate change causing already?

That said, the town’s CEP is the most developed and detailed of the three initiatives, and has a number of components that would give quick climate payoffs. One of its components, the Newmarket Energy Efficiency Retrofit program has been in development for years, and should be pushed to implementation faster.

The Green Development Standards need to be more demanding. For example, they call for new buildings to be “solar ready,” with conduit in place, but not for them to actually have solar panels installed. Similarly, there is no call for buildings to have heat pumps installed. Installation would give some minimal increase on the housing costs, but lower the cost over time of running a house, and that benefit is increasing rapidly as technology develops.

Of course, planning for better building standards depends on the provincial government, and the current government has shown considerable animus to anything “green.”

The Green Fleet Strategy seems to be very concerned with keeping the current fossil fuel vehicles going as long as possible, with their fuel and maintenance expenses, rather than cutting their losses and transitioning as much as possible to electric as fast as possible. This would save a lot of money over time.

Of course, all of this has to be looked at carefully to see what will be the best place to start to get the maximum emissions reductions.

At the beginning I posed three questions to think about how Newmarket is doing in its climate efforts. So let me suggest short answers.

Do we care enough? If we’re talking about council and staff, then I would say “yes”. Almost every time I get to talk with a councillor or related staff member, I sense a good understanding of the nature and severity of the threat we face. But they are also hemmed in by what is politically possible. Council needs to hear about your climate concerns.

Are we doing enough? No, but I suppose almost no government anywhere is. Newmarket could easily show more ambition; clearly, town staff is ready to provide solid, researched advice and I’m sure that Newmarket residents are like most Canadians in wanting to see more action on the climate front.

Are we moving fast enough? No, the entire world is running out of time. However, this is where Newmarket could really step up and be a leader, as we have been in a number of other ways in the recent past. There is plenty of scope for accelerating Newmarket’s climate priorities.

The bottom line for me: Governments have to stop trying to have us believe that we can tackle climate change without changing, without making any sacrifice or accepting any challenge. We’re adults; we can handle it.

Read this article on Newmarket Today.