The Climate Change Challenge
Canadians are concerned about climate change. Public opinion polls show that taxpayers across the country consistently rank the environment as one of the most pressing issues facing our citizens and our government. And, a recent poll conducted by the Globe and Mail revealed that four out of five Canadians believe they have witnessed climate change first-hand.

The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) casts little doubt over the fact that human activity—in particular the burning of fossil fuels—is contributing to a changing climate. There is also growing certainty that the climate conditions observed over the past three decades represent trends that are unlikely to be attributed to natural fluctuations or coincidence alone.

Climate change is an issue that touches nearly every sector of the Canadian economy, and municipal governments are no exception. They are in direct or indirect control of over half of Canada´s greenhouse gas emissions, and it is their decisions related to public transit, waste management, building energy performance, and land-use planning that will greatly influence the amount of greenhouse gas emissions each of us produce.

But beyond their role in helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, municipal governments are also first responders in times of disaster, and the owners of billions of dollars worth of municipal infrastructure. The increasing risk of severe storms, forest fires and floods means that emergency preparedness and response systems must be equipped to deal with more and more climate change events. New infrastructure must be designed to withstand what will become the new normal: lengthy heat waves, shifting freeze-thaw cycles, water scarcity, and extreme precipitation events. This will require the development of innovative new techniques and approaches to infrastructure planning and construction.

The complexity of this issue requires a renewed governance approach, with strengthened intergovernmental coordination, and clear, committed federal leadership. Municipal governments want to be part of a solution that positions Canada as a sustainable, competitive and prosperous nation. Canadians want to feel pride in their communities, and want to see their municipal governments implementing innovative solutions.

Municipalities as Climate Change Partners
Meeting national climate change and clean air objectives will require developing a stronger role for municipal governments. Municipal governments should be enlisted as a partner in the fight for cleaner air and combating climate change, particularly in the areas of public transit, waste management, energy efficiency, renewable energy and climate change adaptation.

With approximately 55 per cent of Canada´s total greenhouse gas emissions under the direct or indirect control of municipal government, it is essential that municipal governments be fully engaged in national clean air and climate change initiatives. Many of Canada´s cities and communities are already climate change leaders, having established ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, implemented municipal bylaws targeting unnecessary idling, and introduced programs to encourage residents to conserve water and energy resources. However, municipal governments are not yet contributing to their full potential. They remain caught in a fiscal squeeze, unable to deal with their growing number of responsibilities, and still trying to cope with the burden of a $60-billion infrastructure deficit.

Much of Canada´s municipal infrastructure is also old and already reaching the end of its service life. Add extreme heat and cold, high winds, too much rain or not enough, rising water levels and other stresses from climate change, and you have the recipe for accelerated aging and maybe even collapse. In addition, increasingly frequent and severe heat waves are already having adverse effects on human health, particularly among vulnerable groups such as the young, elderly, and frail.

Failing to identify and respond to the risks posed by a changing climate will leave our cities and communities at serious risk. Climate change is a fact and it´s past time we got started understanding how it will affect us so we can take steps to respond. We only have to look at the Red River flood of 1997 or Hurricane Katrina to see the costs of waiting until after a disaster to take action. The time is now, before lives are lost, property destroyed and billions spent on cleanup.

MEETING THE CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE

Climate Change Adaptation
The federal government should establish a municipal adaptation fund to assist municipal governments in understanding and responding to the effects of climate change. This fund would be a priority component of the first of the rolling five-year programs as part of a long-term plan to eliminate the municipal infrastructure deficit. Resources from the fund would be used by municipal governments to improve the resiliency of new and existing infrastructure, and would ensure municipalities are prepared for current and future climate conditions.

In addition to supporting investments in climate-resilient infrastructure, the federal government should also take the lead in:

• Continuing to strengthen the science related to climate change impacts;
• Working with engineering professionals and the insurance industry to determine if and how engineering standards should be adjusted to reflect future conditions;
• Developing risk assessment protocols that will help decision-makers assess vulnerability to climate change;
• Ensuring local authorities have fully resourced emergency preparedness and response systems in place to respond to severe weather events; and
• Assessing climate change impacts in Canada´s North, where the changes in climate are expected to be most severe.

National Transit Strategy: A long-term national transit strategy would lead to improved air quality and reduced emissions, and would ease traffic congestion and combat urban sprawl. The Government of Canada should also provide incentives to encourage municipal governments to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleet vehicles, use alternative bio-based fuels, or demonstrate leading-edge clean technologies.

Landfill Gas Capture: Provide enabling resources to assist municipal governments in building the infrastructure necessary to reduce emissions from waste-management processes. Greenhouse gas emissions from municipal landfills can be greatly reduced by developing systems that can effectively capture and use landfill gases. A landfill-gas capital infrastructure program would help municipalities build the infrastructure necessary to generate heat or electricity from landfill gas.

Domestic Offset System: Ensure municipal governments are able to participate and gain credit for emission-reduction projects within a recognized emission trading scheme. Given the size and variety of possible initiatives, it is imperative that any domestic trading regime allow participants to pool and aggregate credits in order to gain optimal value from smaller scale initiatives.

Renewable Energy: Continue to implement and expand renewable power production incentives. Municipalities must have access to safe, reliable and clean sources of energy to support the delivery of municipal services. The Government of Canada must work with all orders of government to develop a national renewable energy strategy, supported by appropriate economic instruments and other policy tools that will ensure municipalities and stakeholders have access to cost-effective and reliable renewable energy sources and technologies.

Municipal Energy Efficiency Fund: Establish a fund to help Canada´s cities and communities make fundamental improvements in energy efficiency. Providing municipal governments with access to resources that will help kick-start investments in energy efficiency will allow them to take a more sustainable, long-term approach to decision-making. Investments in energy efficiency will also pay for themselves in only a few short years, and will continue to offer savings for municipal governments throughout their lifespan.