City of Ottawa is missing its mark on climate goals, watchdog group warns

"Having a new council in place is a great opportunity to put this under their noses and saying, 'We need a lot more governance on this.'"

The City of Ottawa is falling behind its goal to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and a lack of transparency makes it difficult to know how well the city is responding to the “climate emergency” it declared in 2019, according to a report by a group of volunteer climate watchdogs.

The 2022 Climate Progress Account from the Citizen Climate Counsel is meant to support the city in its efforts, said Judith Kennedy, a spokesperson for the group.

“Most of us have worked in climate issues at the national or international level and come to realize that local action is really important for meeting all of our global, collective goals. So that’s why we wanted to focus at that municipal level,” Kennedy said.

“We think the staff have their intentions in the right spot, but they’re not necessarily being resourced adequately. Having a new council in place is a great opportunity to put this under their noses and saying, ‘We need a lot more governance on this.'”

While the city’s Climate Change Master Plan is a detailed summary of what needs to be done and sets ambitious targets, the city appears to be already falling behind on its implementation, Kennedy said. The plan’s “Energy Evolution” section directly targets greenhouse gas emissions and identified 47 milestones to meet by the end of 2021. The city only met five.

Just four per cent of all greenhouse gases emitted in Ottawa come from the corporation, primarily from its buildings and vehicle fleet. But it’s the municipality’s job to help city residents and businesses responsible for the other 96 per cent of emissions fight climate change too, through such programs as the Better Homes Ottawa program, Kennedy said.

“The city has a huge role to play in setting up programs, in facilitating and communicating or getting up funds from other levels of government and that’s the stuff that should be happening right now so we can retrofit the hundreds of thousands of homes that need to be retrofitted.”

Frustratingly, the group determined that data on how well the city was implementing its climate agenda was hard to find. The volunteers sifted through reports and scoured the agendas and minutes of council and committees, but found little information

“It was really disappointing to see how little information was out there,” Kennedy said. “It could be that our report is wrong because we couldn’t find the information. But that’s a story, too, if the public can’t get that information.

“They do put out annual reports on (milestones), but they’re not matching up perfectly with the milestones that they published previously. It makes you wonder, ‘What’s happened if something you mentioned before is not included in your end of year report? Did that just vanish? Is it not a priority anymore? Have you done something different? It’s just really difficult for the average citizen to get hold of that information.”

While city documents say it needs to invest $1.6 billion a year between 2020 and 2030 for climate work, the 2021 budget identified just $800,000 from an Ottawa Hydro surplus.

“For 2022, significantly more has been mentioned, but we have not found a coherent City climate budget, nor an indication of investments by the Ottawa community,” the report said.

That shortsightedness will end up costing more in the end, Kennedy said.

“Our other big message is that we can do this now or we can procrastinate and it’s going to cost us a whole lot more. It’s reckless to not spend that money,” she said. “It’s like not fixing the roof on your house. It’s a grudge expense, but it’s only going to be worse if you don’t do it now.”