Comparing Alberta's Major Cities: A Framework for Evaluating the Sufficiency of Urban Climate Mitigation Plans

This paper examines the climate plans of two cities in the heart of Canada’s fossil fuel producing region, and evaluates their sufficiency. It makes two contributions to the discussion of public policy aimed at mitigating the impact of climate change: first, it develops a framework for evaluating urban climate plans, which helps us to judge whether these plans offer a blueprint for meaningful action. Second, it contributes to our understanding of Alberta’s ability to contribute to Canada reaching its GHG reduction targets. Finding that only Calgary’s plan is insufficient, Calgary may want to consider reorienting their actions in order to meaningfully contribute to climate change mitigation, and could follow Edmonton’s example on how to do this. By 2017, the world was 1.0ºC warmer than its pre-industrial level; it is projected to reach 1.5 ºC warming between 2030 and 2052 if nothing changes the current rate of warming.1 The impacts of reaching 1.5ºC are understood and thus can be planned for, whereas there is high uncertainty associated with exceeding this limit. In order to adapt to the anticipated impacts of climate change, the planet must act to limit warming to 1.5ºC. The path forward requires urgent mitigation – meaning the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Leadership is thus needed from all levels of government; however, policy makers face critical challenges when it comes to action. These challenges can be summarized into three key problems. First, overly-cautious action is weak without targeting the root causes. Second, action taken thus far does not reflect the urgency of the issue. Third, action is taken in short-term, piece-meal steps. In general, these problems can manifest as gaps between the solution this problem requires, the solutions that are chosen, and lack of progress to date. There are two types of climate action: adaptation and mitigation. Adaptation involves actions taken to prepare a place and population for the anticipated impacts of climate change; while mitigation includes actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While it’s true that climate action ultimately must be wide-spread, long-term and systemic –actions will differ depending on the context. Actions can be analyzed according to region, level of government, or activity type. The global conversation on climate change is led by nations. Comparatively, cities are much less-visible and yet critically important. Municipalities have their own unique roles in mitigating climate change based on their proximity to individuals and the concentration activity. Approaching climate mitigation requires focusing on the smaller components without losing sight of the global context. This project will focus on local municipal governments but assess their individual mitigation actions against a broader concept of sufficiency. Two Canadian cities, Calgary and Edmonton, will be used in this analysis. To assess their actions, this project will review each city’s climate mitigation action plan. Within this assessment of each plan, emphasizing the transportation 4 sector serves two purposes. First, activities related to passenger transportation are some of the highest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the reasons why transportation is such a high emitter have to do with its connections to the root causes of the problem. Therefore, the second purpose is to use transportation as a way to reflect how well the plan considers root causes.

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