Vancouver needs to speed up plans to tackle climate change ’emergency’: councillor

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Vancouver needs to make some serious changes if it wants to fight climate change, according to one city councillor.

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Coun. Christine Boyle says the city isn’t moving fast enough. She is presenting a motion at city hall on Tuesday asking the City of Vancouver to ramp up the urgency in climate action plans, including reducing carbon pollution by 50 per cent by 2030. She’s asking the city to consider the situation an emergency.

She says it’s important to look at what needs to be done now, rather than putting it off, hoping it will be dealt with in the future.

“The City of Vancouver has started, and has a decent basis for meeting those goals, but we haven’t yet been meeting goals that we already set out,” she says. “A key part of it for me is thinking responsibly about how we address this issue now, rather than putting it off for future councils and future generations.”

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She says it won’t be easy to get to a three per cent emission reduction every year, and the city will need strong plans to make it happen.

“Vancouverites want to rise to this problem, and we have done difficult things before,” she says. “I think this is doable for us as well.”

If the city doesn’t make significant strides soon, there could be serious consequences, she says.

“It will cost us a lot. There are estimates that Vancouver will spend a billion dollars addressing the impacts of flooding and sea levels rise in the city,” she says. “The more we can be doing now, the less we will end up spending down the road.”

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The motion also asks that city staff investigate what else can be done and report back with some suggestions within three months, including plans to reach “net zero” carbon emissions before 2050, and “net negative” emissions in the second half of this century.

Vancouver council motion: Ramping Up Vancouver’s Climate Action in Response to the Climate Emergency

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