EDMONTON—According to a city report, Edmonton’s plan to cut carbon emissions doesn’t cut deep enough, and in order to meet its goals, the city is going to need to change its tack.

In April, city council’s executive committee asked administration to prepare a report looking at Edmonton’s Energy Transition Strategy, and whether or not it aligns with the goal of keeping the global average temperature increase below 1.5 C.

On Thursday afternoon, city officials shared the results of the report, which found Edmonton’s strategy missed that mark.

It’s not that Edmonton isn’t meeting its emissions targets, explained Paul Ross, economic and environmental sustainability branch manager with the City of Edmonton. It’s that the targets aren’t compatible with the city’s overarching goal, which requires the city to emit no more than 155 megatonnes of carbon dioxide between 2017 and 2050.

“We currently emit 20 megatonnes annually,” Ross said. “At this rate, Edmonton would exceed its carbon budget within eight years.”

Under the emissions targets outlined in the Community Energy Transition Strategy, the city would blow its carbon budget in just over 10 years.

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When council approved the strategy in 2015, the report added, the plan was to cut community greenhouse gas emissions by 35 per cent (compared to 2005) by 2035, and reduce energy consumption by 25 per cent by the same date.

That translates to 11 tonnes of carbon emissions per person per year, explained Mike Mellross, supervisor of energy transition and utility supply for the City of Edmonton.

In 2018, the Edmonton Declaration, a locally grown call to action directed at mayors around the world, said there is an immediate and urgent need to limit global warming to 1.5 C.

According to a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, limiting global warming to 1.5 C could buffer some of the more damaging effects of climate change, which include a rise in sea levels, iceless summers in the Arctic Ocean, and devastated coral reefs. In order to keep temperatures from rising above that benchmark, the report added, there needs to be “rapid and far-reaching” changes — human-caused carbon dioxide emissions would need to fall by about 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, and reach net zero around 2050.

“We have, according to scientists, about 11 years to change course on this before we are in an irreversible and deeply problematic situation for our kids,” Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said after the announcement.

But for the city to play a part in keeping that goal, Mellross added, there needs to be a new target that involves everybody emitting a lot less. Over the next 18 months, city officials will be looking for ways to tweak the plan, and present it to council in the fall of 2020 for approval.

“If council approves this level of ambition, it would be three tonnes per person by 2030,” Mellross said. “And carbon neutrality by 2050.”

At this stage, officials admitted, the new strategy is still in its early days, resembling more of a sketch than a full picture. But some of the options under consideration, Mellross added, involve having 85 per cent of new buildings equipped with solar panels that would provide more than half of their electricity, and having infrastructure for electric vehicles.

In the meantime, the city plans to continue implementing its current energy transition strategy, which includes a residential solar rebate program and retrofit incentives.

Whatever shape the solution takes, it will have to be comprehensive, Ross added.

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“No single action or even a handful of actions will fully lower our carbon emissions at the rate and magnitude required to meet the targets outlined by the international scientific community,” he said. “It will require action being taken across all sectors simultaneously, and will need clear pathways to succeed with defined timelines.”

Over the next year and a half, the city will embark on public consultations, search for tools to meet its goal, and complete an economic and financial analysis to find support for the strategy.

Finding a path to help the city meet its goals isn’t so much an option as a necessity, Iveson said.

“If we are the generation that fails to do this, how can I look my kids in the eye?” he said. “We absolutely can and must rise to this.”

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