Protect the Plan - Help Keep Ottawa’s Climate Plan on Track
Energy Evolution- the historic climate plan with a vision to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050- is a comprehensive and ambitious strategy with hard targets in line with IPCC science. Yet, one year into the plan, it is at risk, with the gap between the budget and investment needs of climate change already widening. Energy Evolution is drawn from unstable funding, the city has already tried to claw back climate funding and has invested only a tiny fraction of its required commitment. The annual price tag for this plan was $621 million, however, only $2.6 million (less than 1% of the annual price) has been invested so far.
Further exacerbating the scenario, we have seen, Covid-19 gutting city budgets and threatening climate action funding. Fledgling climate action plans – many strengthened by the Canada-wide move to declare climate emergencies in cities across the country – are now being delayed or disbanded. Protect the Plan emphasizes that it’s imperative to protect and build on the hard-won climate progress we’ve made and push city leadership to prioritize the environment in the post-Covid world of constrained budgets. If political leaders are not lobbied and held to account, we are in danger of seeing a complete collapse of municipal climate progress in this country.