CCEM 101 Question 2

[Carly Johansson]

Thinking about the section on target setting in the Community Energy and Emissions Planning Guide, which approach might work best for the community you work for or live in?

[Carly Johansson]

We chose aspirational targets, for two reasons. First that we feel the issue of climate action is much needed and we need to set (and meet!) ambitious targets. Plus we would have argued forever to determine what was “realistic” and still not got it right! There are too many unknowns when you are at that planning stage.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

I agree that you have to be practical when stakeholder negotiations are likely to get difficult. Thankfully, more and more folks are ready and able to take action, so it’s best to work with those who are willing.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Victoria’s 2020 target is to reduce GHG emissions by 33% below 2007 levels. I think this target is bold, aggressive, and achievable. Given the size of the City, it is understandable why a visionary top-down target approach was selected. The City is projected to reach approximately 90,000 by 2020. If poorly managed, this growth could result in increased GHGs and energy consumption per capita. For example, while transit ridership saw a 5.5% increase over the past year, emissions from the transportation sector are still relatively high, accounting for over 43% of Victoria’s GHG emissions in 2007. In light of cheaper gas prices, and the low parking prices downtown, the City will need to continuously revisit its ambitious targets in its CEEP to determine what actions are needed to promote transit use, walking, and cycling. As part of achieving a 33% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020, the City has committed to highly ambitious transit targets.

The City’s ambitious targets are clearly laid out in the CEEP, and are linked directly back to the goals, targets, and policies of the Official Community Plan. Without having been part of the City’s target setting process in 2012, I would agree with Judith that it’s far more effective to set ambitious targets than go through a laborious a very challenging exercise of trying to determine the “realistic” target as the political, economic, and social context can change very rapidly.

[Carly Johansson]

Yukon has sector-specific pragmatic GHG targets. While these targets provide some guidance on how we can manage energy and emissions, they don’t really empower us to work cohesively, and don’t lend themselves well to planning. For example, we have a pragmatic target of reducing transportation sector emissions by 10% by 2015. However, it’s very hard to suggest to a community that they take on a specific component of that 10%, given that transportation includes industrial and tourist traffic that is currently unregulated. As a result I suspect that a more aspirational target would have been more useful.

[Carly Johansson]

Ryan
I agree with your comment of aspirational targets maybe being better to represent the majority of the targets set by Yukon. But given my thoughts earlier, it is also very hard to not push off (set aside) aspirational targets without having some shorter term or more pragmatic targets to push people to find solutions that will achieve the targets. It would seem the best CEEPs will have combinations of short and long term targets that work for the community based on size, demographics etc. At least with pragmatic targets set by Yukon the communities have a Northstar in each sector to aim for.

[Carly Johansson]

Geoff-
You paint an interesting picture of a “push/pull” dynamic between pragmatic and aspirational targets that I think is the norm in many regulatory discussions. I also like the comments by Timothy below (we are in fact increasingly discussing the issue of too many plans as a part of our CEP work here). One aspect of this discussion we haven’t touched on that would influence the role of pragmatic targets is the role of leadership. Without firm local leadership at the community level we are unlikely to see any real pragmatic targets emerging from our communities. Such leadership is challenging to ask for given the limited capacity of our communities, which average a population of 400 people, and are largely dependent on revenue from Federal transfer payments for operations. At the moment we are trying to foster this leadership through discussion of revenue savings and economic development and emphasizing sustainable decision-making. Any thoughts?

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Ryan,

I completely understand the limitations you have identified re. community capacity and the ability of small, rural, remote communities to track and commit to going after aspirational emissions targets. It may be useful to set targets around operations and installations that other organizations such as the Northwest Territories Power Corporation are tackling as part of their operations & planning (e.g. LED street light installations to replace costly mercury vapour & high pressure sodium street lights). Although, I am not sure if NTPC would be accounting for the GHG savings from their end, which would preclude the communities from also accounting for the GHG emissions reductions from such LED street light installations.

Either way that the GHG’s are accounted for, the communities still benefit at the end of the day from large-scale retrofit projects such as this, since the communities are the ones paying the power bills.

Perhaps working collaboratively on other retrofit/installation projects that tackle major GHG emissions and have an impact on the whole community, not just small aspects of it, will be of greater interest to community leaders. Once they get familiar with the results and benefits of such energy conserving and energy efficiency efforts, they may be more interested and engaged in undertaking more involved Community Energy Planning and target-setting activities. Things seem to be more readily received once that Awareness/Education tipping point is finally achieved.

[Carly Johansson]

Setting targets can be a very challenging thing. As Timothy mentioned, Victoria set aspirational targets that aligned with the Provincial targets – 33% reduction from 2007 levels by 2020. With so many factors influencing a community the size and make up of Victoria, it would be hard to justify setting large or long term realistic targets. But on the flip side, it is also hard to not push to the side of the desk long term aspirational targets when they take continual reminders and re-focusing to even come close to achieving these targets. One good thing with the Victoria CEEP is that it is linked heavily with our municipal plans thus providing the reminders and focusing for city staff even through the changing landscape of municipal politics.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Hi Geoff,

Great points and totally agree. Your post reminded me of an article I read recently in Plan Canada which is the Canadian Institute of Planner’s official magazine. The article, titled “Too Many Plans?” was written by Andrew Burns and Jill Grant. Their thesis is that Canadian cities are producing so many plans — ranging from Active Transportation Plans, Housing Plans, Land Use Plans, and more — that it is becoming hard to effectively coordinate land use planning and policy implementation. Their recommendation: it is extremely important to effectively coordinate policies across multiple plans to ensure coherence of planning practice.

While their conclusion may seem obvious, it is worth repeating. I agree with you in that the Victoria CEEP is linked backed to existing municipal plans which makes it easy to understand how the objectives of one plan are complimentary to another. The CEEP references a number of municipal plans and clearly states how the CEEP’s policy objectives and desired results relate to those plans. As an example, some of the recommendations (e.g. advance the energy efficiency requirements of the BC Building Code) clearly indicate which OCP objective they relate to. This is transparent and a good example of coordinating planning policies across municipal planning documents, in my opinion.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Great discussion in this forum. I’m leaning toward aspirational targets for Salt Spring Island. Most of the climate actions come from volunteer grass roots organizations and only recently has the local planning authority put climate back on the priority list.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Nanaimo intially set aspirational targets, and then adjusted our targets after our CEEP to fall closer to what our population growth and density projections were expecting. We made the later adjustment during our CEEP process. The target was chosen as a way to build credibility and momentum to begin taking action, first corporately, and then later throug a number of community intiaitves.

Prior to the CEEP being completed, there were concerns that the aspirational targets being placed in the OCP by the legislated deadline were not going to be taken seriously. By conducting a CEEP and engaging a range of stakeholders and various staff and council, we wanted to come to a common understanding of why this was important and what target we could intially accept. I say this, because targets can always be adjusted up in the future once some sense of progress and accomplishment is reached in meeting the initial target.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Rob, sounds like a great approach to target setting. I think it’s realistic to accept that a community might need/want to make adjustments to initial targets as more information becomes available.

[Carly Johansson]

Rob – how realistic do you think it is that targets will be adjusted upwards? I fear that we (collectively) risk patting ourselves on the back for achieving a small improvement when we really need significant change if we are actually going to stop climate change going past a ‘breaking point’.

I love the engagement you have done with staff and council so that they understand the importance of the targets!

Question for everyone – do your councils/boards and staff really understand the magnitude of this issue and their role? Pretty sure most of mine just see it as “a good thing to do’ without really understanding the implications of inaction.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

In general, here in the Northwest Territories and more specifically, the Village of Ft. Simpson (pop’n ~1,200) where I live, the more practical/pragmatic approach is likely the approach that would have the best uptake. Many of the Community Energy Plans that were created for the 33 communities across the NWT (2004 – 2010) http://aea.nt.ca/communities identify short, achievable lists of “Recommended” & “Potential Future” Strategies.

With that said, a few NWT communities such as Whati and the capital city, Yellowknife, have created more detailed CEPs with Yk pursuing a “visionary” or aspirational approach with more specific emissions targets set within the details of the CEP and Whati identifying 7 pages of actions that target specific activities. Targets for the City of Yk operations were to reduce emissions by 20% (over 2004 baseline levels) and for the reduction of emissions for the entire community of Yk of 6% (over 2004 baseline levels) by 2014.

The Arctic Energy Alliance is interested in revisiting the CEPs that NWT communities created as part of the Integrated Community Sustainability Plans developed back in 2010 for Ft. Simpson, for example. Given that participation in these planning processes was tied to the receipt of gas tax funding, it appears that the community commitment to following through on the Recommended & Potential Future Strategies identified in many of the NWT CEPs may need to be revisited and sparked into action. It is also somewhat challenging for small, rural, remote communities to ensure that CEP strategies are followed-up on if higher turnover of Municipal & Band Councils as well as Senior Administrative Officers or Band Managers is the reality.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

I’d like to see my community and the City of Ottawa set visionary targets. I think it’s inspiring to be bold and aggressive when it comes to saving energy and reducing GHG emissions. However, I think that aggressive targets have the potential to cause people to become disinterested if they think the targets are unrealistic.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Judith / Emily – What I found at the time was the need to create some momentum and recognition that even modest actions make a difference. And yes I believe we can adjust our targets to be more aspirational and agressive, especially when we can look back at what was accomplished.

One final point, I think many staff and councils get it and understand the magnitude of this issue. But it becomes too easy to slip into a state of hopelessness and a feeling that anything “our little town” does will mean very little globally.

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