Residents will have their say at climate change event: mayor
Iveson cites serious storms as most significant threat facing the city
Residents won’t be left out of the conversation when hundreds of scientists and politicians arrive in Edmonton next month to discuss how cities should be adapting to climate change.
“A city can’t do the work of climate adaptation and climate resiliency alone,” Mayor Don Iveson said Tuesday at the Shaw Conference Centre.
“We need the participation of business, civil society, researchers, artists and students … and it’s going to take a whole village to tackle this challenge.”
Iveson joined high school and University of Alberta arts students to announce community events that will run in conjunction with the international Cities and Climate Change Science Conference, March 5-7.
Some of the events leading up to the conference include students from around the world sharing their concerns about climate change, a white paper from students on understanding and responding to challenges of climate change and student art exhibits.
The threat from climate change is critical and growing, Iveson said.
“We may not be immediately in danger of some of the more dramatic manifestations around climate risk, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, sea level rising, but for us, forest fires, flooding and diminished access to fresh water resources are all real and immediate threats,” he said.
“And as disruption manifests around the world … with hundreds of millions of people around the world without homes ... climate migration challenge could be a pressure for cities like ours.”
The most significant threat Edmonton faces from climate change is serious storms, he said.
“We’ve already seen in the last decade what can happen when these storms pound the city over and over again, and we’ve modelled that we have to spend at least $200 billion on upgrades to our drainage system to deal with storms that are happening today,” he said.
Other threats include lack of fresh water because of receding glaciers and melting snowcaps, and risks to food production because of warming temperatures and fluctuating growing seasons.
Recently, the city received a failing grade for its recycling efforts.
“Municipal solid waste rotting in a landfill and producing methane ... is one of the most significant municipally controlled contributors to climate change,” he said.
The city needs to treat garbage as a resource rather than something to be buried, Iveson said.