St. Catharines setting climate change goals
St. Catharines will undergo a climate change risk assessment this year to determine the city’s biggest vulnerabilities as well as come up with a greenhouse gas emission target for the community.
The steps are required as part of the volunteer Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy program, which city council voted to join in November 2015.
“We’re already seeing impacts from climate change in St. Catharines and they’re not unique to us,” Mark Green, manger of environmental services, told city councillors Monday. “All kinds of communities in Niagara and southern Ontario are seeing the same things or even worse.”
He said local effects of climate change include the wind storm in 2011 that saw 400 trees down, fences blown over and power losses.
In 2013 and 2014, St. Catharines had heavy rainstorms that caused flooding and city council took the unprecedented step of declaring an area in the southwest a disaster zone.
The year 2015 saw one of the coldest winters ever that left hundreds of residents with frozen water pipes and no access to water for days or weeks.
And summer 2016 saw a drought that led to a fire ban for the first time.
“The climate has already changed,” Green said, adding 2016 was the warmest year on record, beating the previous record in 2015, which beat the record set in 2014.
Green said St. Catharines was one of the first municipalities in join the program, formally called the Compact of Mayors which was born out of the 2014 United Nations Climate Change Summit.
About 600 cities have voluntarily committed to the program, each aiming to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and prepare locally for the impacts of climate change.
St. Catharines staff have been working with Niagara Sustainability Initiative to meet the requirements of the program. In 2017, that includes coming up with a communitywide target to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions and conduct a risk and vulnerability assessment.
Green said last year they identified
Rainstorm, heavy snow, severe wind, tornado, electrical storm, fog, extreme winter conditions, cold wave, extreme cold weather, heatwave, extreme hot weather
Drought, land fire River flood Rockfall Water-borne disease, vector-borne disease, air-borne disease, insect infestation
the climate hazards St. Catharines faces, such as extreme weather, as part of planning and prevention.
This year, they’ll undertake an assessment to determine the biggest risks to the city and prioritize them. In 2018, a plan will be created to address those risks and after that it will be implemented.
Another step that was taken last year was a greenhouse gas emission inventory, looking at how much carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere by the community.
St. Catharines residents and businesses emitted the equivalent of almost a million tonnes, based on the data collected from 2014.
The biggest source was from vehicles travelling on the road, making up 48 per cent of emissions. Green admitted it’s going to be a challenge to get that number down significantly.
He said 2017 will be a key decision-making moment for city councillors because they’ll have to identify a greenhouse gas emission target. A climate action plan will then be prepared to meet that target and a plan implemented.
Green said there’s a wide range of targets and what St. Catharines puts in place will depend on how ambitious council wants to be, the capacity of the city and its resources.
“It’s also important when setting targets we balance between being realistic — actual targets we can meet — and on the other hand being ambitious,” Green told council. “If the target is too small, yes we can meet it, but there’s really no point of being part of this program
to do that. If the target is too ambitious, we can’t meet it and that doesn’t help anyone either.”
A future report will come to council outlining the options for climate change emission reduction targets. There will be public consultation before a target is set.
Mayor Walter Sendzik said there will be a lot of decision-making on the issue that’s going to come up quickly for council, including costs.
“I think you’re going to see a lot more in the 2018 deliberations for the budget as to what needs to be done in order to mitigate some of these significant issues that we’re facing,” he told councillors.