Climate efforts must get much more serious
Community emissions come from homes, buildings and transportation
When I think about the
“code red” warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group, I imagine heat waves like the one we just had as summer's cooler days. I don't know how we'll deal with lows in the mid-20s. But I do know we'll be stuck dealing with them because we can't seem to get our act together on emissions.
It would be easy to blame that stubborn group of deniers who are convinced every single report is just more alarmist malarkey.
That the proper response to threats of intense flooding, violent storms, rising temperatures and mollusks cooking in their shells is ridicule. You'll notice, by the way, that very often the people who scoff at the threat of climate change are also the ones who believe COVID-19 is a hoax invented by the Chinese Communist Party to enslave us, that masks are totalitarianism made cloth and that vaccines make you sterile.
It would be easy to blame them, I said. But not entirely fair. Truth is, we're all to blame.
The federal Liberals say fighting climate change is important but then the environment minister tries to gaslight us (get it) into believing profits from the pipeline the government purchased in our name are necessary to fight climate change. It's like saying eating an entire cheesecake will make you lose weight.
Political parties have other priorities, and that's our fault — we're not being loud enough when we tell them getting serious about climate change is a must. We need to be louder, and also creative.
May I suggest switching targets to municipal governments? They're certainly easier to reach, and as it happens the City of Ottawa has already declared a climate emergency in 2019.
City council even adopted greenhouse gas reduction targets based on 2012 levels. We're supposed to reduce community-produced GHGs by 43 per cent by 2025, by 68 per cent by 2030, by 96 per cent by 2040 and by 100 per cent by 2050. There are also goals to reduce emissions from city operations.
Nearly half (45 per cent) of community emissions in our city come from homes and buildings (heating, cooling, water heating). Another 44 per cent is transportation. Together those two are 89 per cent of emissions generated by the community — by you and me and our neighbours. Emission levels that, the city says dryly, have remained essentially the same since 2016.
We're not being serious. And we won't be until we stop expanding the urban boundary. Sprawl significantly hinders our ability to reduce emissions in two ways: Suburban houses are big and costly to cool and heat, and their distance from the centre forces people who work in town to drive lots.
I get it; people want to have their private space. But that private space comes at a massive environmental cost that gets passed on to everyone else — whether they like it or not. It already costs more to live near the core than in the far-away burbs. What right do suburbanites have to demand their decisions be subsidized by everyone?
(If you're tempted to argue that housing near the core should be more affordable especially for families, I will gladly agree and join your campaign.)
Urban sprawl would not be nearly as popular if people who live in far-away suburbs were made to pay a higher cost to drive themselves downtown every day.
Congestion pricing would also make downtown mightily more pleasant to people who live and work there by reducing traffic, noise and air pollution. If it cost you $10 to take your car north of the Queensway between Bronson and the Canal, you'd find other ways to get there. Especially if transit was reliable, convenient and free.
We're in danger of being cooked alive like mollusks. We needed to get serious about reducing emissions 20 years ago. Now is the only acceptable second choice. We have a plan. We just need to have the guts to implement it.
We're not being serious. And we won't be until we stop expanding the urban boundary.