Toronto will declare a climate emergency, joining 800 other governments in 16 countries that have already done so, Mayor John Tory says.

The declaration will be brought to council on Oct. 2.

"Toronto is joining some 800 other communities and saying this is something that requires very urgent attention by us all," Tory said at a press conference on Friday.

The city is already working on environmental initiatives, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, undertaking building retrofits and buying electric buses, Tory added.

He made his announcement as climate change demonstrations took place around the world, in an effort to persuade politicians to move quickly on the issue, and the same day a group of 47 organizations called on Toronto City Council to declare a climate emergency and commit to taking accelerated action.

Emmay Mah, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, said her group is encouraged that the city will declare a climate emergency, but wants to see more.

“We feel it’s really important that these climate emergencies have teeth,” she said.

Some steps being suggested by the groups include launching a full-scale and funded building retrofit strategy, expanding the number of dedicated bus lanes and transit priority zones in the city, and divesting from city investments that have a high carbon footprint.

Other cities that have already taken the step include Amsterdam, Auckland, Barcelona, London, Los Angeles, Montréal, New York City, Paris, San Francisco, Sydney and Vancouver.

The declaration is a way for council to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis, which has resulted in widespread flooding across the city.

“In the past few years, we have seen our residents and businesses in Toronto dealing with the effects of more frequent flooding and other severe weather events brought on by climate change. Our City’s Resilience Strategy noted Toronto’s weather is getting hotter, wetter and wilder and our climate risks are increasing,” according to Tory.

Coun. Mike Layton, who has a master’s degree in environmental science and worked at Environmental Defence before being elected in 2010, has been working with fellow environmentalists for months on a climate emergency declaration.

He welcomed Tory’s interest but said the declaration adopted by city council must be more than window-dressing, committing Toronto to substantial initiatives to reduce the threat of climate change.

“This is an important step but it has to mean something, and that will mean improving targets for emissions reductions, consistent with expert opinion, and including communities such as Indigenous people,” Layton said.

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“We’ve been working on the content of our (city council) motion for some time and we’ve had some recent discussions with the mayor’s office. We’re hopeful we can agree on commitments that will make this declaration meaningful.”

Toronto has already undertaken some measures to combat global warming — in 2017, Toronto City Council approved the TransformTO plan to reach greenhouse gas reduction targets of 80% reduction by 2050, based on 1990 levels.

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