St. Albert’s greenhouse gas reduction plan got a thumbs-up from a local climate change guru this week – even if some of its targets were a bit low.
Council accepted the St. Albert local action plan for energy conservation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions Monday. In the works since 2011, the plan outlines ways in which the city can save energy and meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction goals.
The report makes a long list of steps the city should take to reach its corporate and community greenhouse gas goals. The city hopes to reduce its corporate emissions by 20 per cent below 2008 levels by 2020, and its total emissions by six per cent by that same date.
While some of these steps are already in progress or will be done internally by the city, many won’t kick in until after 2016 – just four years before the city is supposed to meet these targets.
The recent community environment survey showed that residents want to focus on trees, parks, and the Sturgeon River, said city community sustainability manager Leah Kongsrude, so don’t expect much to happen on the residential side for a few years.
“It doesn’t mean we won’t do anything around greenhouse gas emissions,” she added. Instead, the city will direct most of its efforts in the next five years inwards at corporate emissions. “We need to lead by example.”
Energy conservation and water conservation save you money, Kongsrude said, and this plan is meant to do both.
The report notes that city residents spent about $170 million a year on energy in 2008, or about $2,800 per person. Almost 61 per cent of that was on gasoline.
“Our residents are paying a large amount of money on gasoline,” Kongsrude said. “That, to me, is an opportunity.” The report recommends that the city create policies next year to encourage mixed-use, transit-focused development, and, in the long term, bring in paid parking to encourage residents to walk, bike or bus.
About 60 per cent of the city’s corporate emissions come from buildings, the report notes. The report recommends that the city adopt minimum energy performance goals for new city buildings and do energy audits/retrofits on existing ones.
Godo Stoyke, head of Edmonton’s Carbon Busters and author of several books on energy conservation, commended St. Albert for having an emissions reduction strategy in place. “There’s a lot of really good ideas in there,” he said, particularly the no- to low-cost measures of encouraging mixed-use development and district heating. “Those have huge paybacks.”
St. Albert could likely meet a higher corporate target than the one it’s set, Stoyke said, as his firm’s audits of Canadian cities suggests that most can cut energy use in buildings by 20 to 30 per cent at little net cost. “Most municipal departments have a hard job just keeping the building occupants happy,” he notes, so there’s typically lots of room to improve.
The report also recommends that the city establish a home retrofit program, attract more renewable power projects, and look into LED streetlights.
The report is available in the minutes of the Sept. 16 meeting.
