Opinion

WINNIPEG City Council will vote on May 30 to approve council’s Strategic Priorities Action Plan 2023-2026. This plan presents 41 strategic priorities to guide council policy and finances over the next four years. A serious commitment to a comprehensive zero-carbon strategy for Winnipeg is not a guiding priority. Why?

The City of Vancouver declared a climate emergency in 2020 and stated that “the climate crisis is the defining issue of our time.” Around the globe, there are over 2,500 cities and municipalities in 40 countries that have formalized a binding motion declaring a climate emergency. In Canada, there are 652.

Many of these jurisdictions have proceeded to set up action plans to guide the transition to zero-carbon economies and then have committed funding to implement the plans. Calgary has committed $87 billion to a net-zero plan over 28 years; Edmonton $24 billion over 10 years; Saskatoon $19 billion over 28 years and Ottawa $30 billion over 28 years.

Winnipeg has not declared a climate emergency. It has not formally committed funding for a zero-carbon action plan. However, it has commissioned an action plan entitled the Community Energy Investment Roadmap (CEIR). This is a taxpayer-funded, evidence-based plan that defines the actions, scale and economics necessary for the transformation of Winnipeg to a net-zero economy by 2050. The CEIR report was formally approved as a motion of city council in July 2022 with direction for the public service to “analyze and research how to include climate change impact in the operating and capital investment processes and decisions.”

And yet, there no mention of the CEIR report anywhere in Council’s Strategic Priorities Action Plan 2023-2026.

Other Canadian cities realize that if you don’t get the zero-carbon action plan right, the rest doesn’t matter. If you reduce carbon costs starting now, and view all decisions through a climate lens, the climate dividend will start to provide the funds to accomplish many of the strategic priorities.

A zero-carbon economy is a good investment: the net community benefit to Winnipegis $35.6 billion over 28 years, a climate dividend that averages $1.2 billion per year. By 2050 the total energy cost savings will be nearly $2 billion per year — and all this energy is made-in-Manitoba. The billions sent to Alberta every year recirculate inside Winnipeg for additional benefits.

Employment between 2020-2050 is projected to increase over 100,000 person years

To achieve this result, the CEIR report recommends a societal investment (from public and private sources) of $23 billion over 28 years (from 2022–2050), averaging $800 million per year (or one per cent of Manitoba’s GDP).

This investment pays for itself two times over, generating savings of $53.7 billion from avoided carbon costs, reduced energy costs, and avoided maintenance costs and revenues of nearly $5 billion until 2050.

Households save money and improve health: if the CEIR report is implemented, household expenditure will shift away from natural gas and gasoline to electricity, using high efficiency space heating and cooling with heat pumps or geothermal, and improving the efficiency of homes and reducing energy costs by 56 per cent per year.

With carbon tax increases and reduced energy costs, an average household in 2050 will save $4,500 per year. These savings can be used to finance the incremental capital expenditures required to achieve the carbon targets.

Health is improved with better air quality; clean energy reduces asthma, bronchial conditions and absenteeism while improving mental health.

Achieving a net-zero economy can reduce energy poverty, when a household’s energy costs represent a disproportionate share of their income.

The timeline is tight and the pathway ambitious. The CEIR report recommends that the next generation of climate action focuses on the systematic transformation of the built environment, as opposed to a long list of actions.

In particular, this means embedding a climate test where each investment is evaluated to identify its contributions to decreasing or increasing emissions, a whole-city approach. If an evaluation results in increased emissions, the project or policy should not proceed. This whole city approach requires applying a climate lens and an annual carbon budget for all policies and expenditures; annual greenhouse gas reporting; an expanded Office of Sustainability; net-zero city buildings and fleet and the establishment of a climate advisory committee.

Make no mistake, all cities will be transformed to become zero-carbon, it is just a matter of when. The sooner a city commits to zero-carbon and starts to act, the less it will cost, the better the economy and the more competitive it will be.

Winnipeg city council itself has approved the direction outlined by the CEIR report. Council just needs to follow its own climate action plan. Talk to your councillor.

Dudley Thompson is chair of the advocacy committee, Sustainable Building Manitoba.