The Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign (OCEC) s a non-partisan campaign promoting awareness on the climate crisis and environmental issues. The campaign is based on our 12-point Climate Action Plan, which has 246 signatory groups and 385 signatory individuals. Watch this CBC video clip about the campaign. To join OCEC, sign on as a group or sign on as an individual.

The opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of OCEC.

Correction: There was an error in our December newsletter regarding the protest held in Port Hope. It was organized by Blue Dot Northumberland, and featured a song written and led by Marie-Lynn Hammond. 

We focus on the sixth action of OCEC’s 12-point Climate Action Plan.

We look first at OCEC activities over the past few weeks. We then turn to issues relating to land use planning, building and appliance codes, housing design and retrofits (including excerpts from an interview with energy efficient builder Dave Braden), and affordable and accessible housing. We also alert you to opportunities to influence government budgets and have a quick debrief on the outcomes of COP15, the Global Biodiversity Conference held in Montreal, Dec. 7-19. We intersperse resources for more information and conclude with some calls to action, good news items and upcoming events.

The built environment generates 40% of annual global CO2 emissions.

Of those total emissions, building operations are responsible for 27% annually, while building and infrastructure materials and construction (typically referred to as embodied carbon) are responsible for an additional 13% annually. (Architecture 2030) Energy use in buildings is a major source of GHG emissions in Canada (12% in 2020), and especially in Ontario (25% in 2020), which has close to 40% of Canada’s population. Higher density cities have higher emissions from buildings; e.g., 57% of Toronto’s greenhouse gas emissions come from homes and buildings, primarily due to the burning of natural gas for heating. 

Reducing those emissions through a just transition to decarbonized, renewable energy use in new and retrofitted buildings and homes is central to OCEC’s Climate Action Plan. This includes treating construction workers fairly and ensuring affordable housing for the disadvantaged. Achieving those goals depends on ending urban sprawl and our current reliance on fossil fuels, especially natural gas, the source of 76% of Ontario’s building emissions, for heating, cooling and, in homes, cooking.  Making that transition starts with Land Use Planning that is precisely the opposite of the urban sprawl the Government of Ontario is now implementing with Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act of 2022. Changing Building Code and Appliance Standards regulations is fundamental, as is builder information and code compliance auditing. Government Housing and Retrofit Programs and Financial Subsidies are needed to incentivise businesses and individuals, including construction workers, homeowners and renters, to conserve energy and transition from natural gas to energy-and-cost-saving electric appliances like heat pumps and convection stoves. Finally, ensuring an adequate supply of affordable, accessible and energy efficient housing is essential for social justice and an environmentally sustainable future.

Read on to the end to find actions, events, and good news!

Photo taken after the Jan 17th deputations at Toronto City Hall: From l to r - Lee Adamson, Councillor Chris Moise, Budget Committee Chair Councillor Gary Crawford, Dr. Jacob Pendergrast, Councillor Alejandra Bravo, Anne Keary, Sharon Bider, Lyn Adamson, Mary Blake Bonn, Jacinta McDonnell

The Government of Ontario’s Bill 23, now the Build Homes Faster Act of 2022, has triggered increasing resistance to its many violations of sustainable land use.  It encourages urban sprawl, which means more energy-intensive, high-cost maintenance infrastructure (like water and sewage pipes), more travelling and greenhouse gas emissions between home and work, and runs roughshod over both the Greenbelt surrounding Toronto and wetlands conservation throughout Ontario.  As Sarah Harman says - that fight is not over.

Doug Varty, head of the Ontario’s Species Conservation Action Agency, has resigned, saying:

“Like many Ontarians I have become increasingly disappointed in the recent direction of the Ford government with respect to land/greenbelt protection, watershed protection, sprawl and other related matters.” 

Indeed, questions as to how some developers seem to have had knowledge of what parts of the Greenbelt would be opened to development in advance of the legislation, making strategic purchases, have been raised by many both inside and outside the legislature, to the point that the OPP is now considering an investigation of the matter. You can keep up the pressure by signing this action letter to the OPP on Environmental Defence’s website. Both the Auditor General of Ontario and the legislative ethics committee are launching Greenbelt investigations.

Watch this clip from “About That”, a CBC program with Andrew Chang, in which he, Emma McIntosh and Fatima Syed from The Narwhal visit the Ontario Greenbelt (OG). They ask what the ecological costs are of the Ontario Government opening up parts of the OG to development and who benefits

The value of increasing energy efficiency in one’s home is lower energy costs, greater home comfort, and increased home resale value.

Increasing Energy Efficiency Through Building Design: An Interview with Dave Braden of Braden Homes

Supporting a transition to zero emission buildings requires relevant and enforced building and appliance codes and regulations. In Ontario, responsibility for creating and enacting building codes and regulations lies mostly with The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, as well as the Ontario Energy Board. However, a 2020 audit on reducing emissions in buildings found that neither of these entities focus on reducing building emissions, or climate change for that matter, as part of their decision-making processes. The Ontario Building Code must be strengthened to require that new and existing buildings not only reduce natural gas consumption, but transition quickly towards low- or zero-emitting energy sources. As noted by the Canadian Climate Institute, Ontario has yet to formally commit to zero carbon building codes or stringent appliance efficiency standards.  As a result the majority of home heating stock will continue to come from gas.  

Climate adaptation measures are an equally important focus for building codes and regulations.   Water, storm water and sewage infrastructure are the foundation for all buildings, whether in urban settings or in rural and remote communities.  Building code regulations that ensure access to affordable, safe clean drinking water and, increasingly, green infrastructure for stormwater and sewage disposal need updating in the face of the drought, flooding and pollution challenges posed by the climate crisis.  

In the 2022 Value-for-Money Audit, the Auditor General of Ontario found that the Government of Ontario is failing to make adequate building code specifications. Many energy-efficiency and flood prevention devices are relatively inexpensive if installed at the time of construction, but are a costly renovation. In another retrograde use of Ontario’s building code, in 2019 the Ford Government deleted the requirement that all new homes have a ‘rough-in’ for an electric vehicle charger.

Heat Pumps for Heating and Cooling

As EV’s are reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Transportation, Heat Pumps are a major emissions reduction technology in the Buildings Sector. Over 700,000 have been installed across Canada. Two OCEC Signatories have interesting videos of webinars on the topic and excellent educational resources:

Heat Pump Resources for residential buildings

• A Heat Pump Primer (Ontario Clean Air Alliance)
• Heat Pumps: the clear climate choice for your home (OCAA webinar recording) 
• Heating and Cooling With a Heat Pump (National Resources Canada)
• Heat Pumps are Open for Business: heat pump resources for commercial buildings (Canadian Climate Institute)) 

Check your local community organisations devoted to facilitating energy conservation and efficiency  for initiatives for the homes and buildings in your area - or use these as models to establish your own:

Harbord Village Residents Association
Pocket Change

“Ontario saw a net loss of 47,212 people to other provinces over the past two years” (Toronto Star). According to Statistics Canada, two factors are driving this exodus - remote work due to the digital revolution and the impact of Covid 19, and lack of affordable housing.

In their Straddling the Gap 2022 report, Generation Squeeze reported it would take 27 years of full-time work for the typical young Torontonian to save a 20 percent down payment for an average home.

ACORN Canada, an independent national organization of low and moderate income people, unites communities for social justice. They have 160,000+ members in 20+ neighbourhood chapters across 9 cities. Since 2004 they have won several important victories including payday lending legislation, raises in the minimum wage, housing rights by-laws across the country, affordable internet program, disability rights and more. On Dec 7th, 150+ ACORN members & allies stood together in solidarity to fight Bill 23. Read 150+ Join the ‘Ottawa Against Bill 23 Rally’ To Protect Affordable Housing, Our Democracy and The Environment! 

The Climate Caucus Councillors’ Handbook has a chapter with information from municipalities across Canada on best practices for Low-Energy Affordable Housing.

In their response to the Canada Green Building Strategy Discussion Paper, the Canadian Environmental Law Association made recommendations to ensure that the program design and program funding appropriately incorporates low-income people.

• The Canadian government has produced a Fact Sheet on federal policies, programs and funding to meet the targets in their 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan for Buildings.
• The Canadian government has also committed to develop a national net zero by 2050 buildings strategy. The Canada Green Buildings Strategy will provide assistance to provinces and territories to develop and implement net-zero building codes.
• Canada’s Climate Action Plan contains new measures for Homes and Buildings
• Senate Report on reducing emissions from buildings
• Net Zero Carbon Buildings Accelerator (C40 Cities)
• Value-for-Money Audit: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Energy Use in Buildings (Office of the Auditor General 2020)

A Major Success in Ambition - but the Devil resides in its implementation ….

Successes of the final Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed by the 196 Parties to the CBD: (Two states are not signatories - the Vatican and the U.S.)

• ‘30 x 30 x 30 x 30’ - Protection of 30% of land and sea and 30% restored with $30 billion in conservation funding by 2030.
• 50% reduction in excess nutrients and in pesticides and hazardous chemicals and global food waste as well as a reduction in plastics pollution by 2030.
• Identify incentives and subsidies harmful to biodiversity by 2025 and phase out at least USD 500 B by 2030. (Most subsidies are to the agribusiness, forestry and fisheries industries.)
• The financing commitment is 20 B per year by 2025 and at least 30 B per year by 2030 from developed to developing countries that harbour over 80% of global biodiversity.

Disappointments with the final K-M Global Biodiversity Framework:

• The lack of specific numerical targets on reducing human-caused species extinction by 2030;
• While indigenous rights and knowledge were recognized in general, there was no specific recognition of Indigenous sovereignty.

Are the K-M GBF commitments strong enough to protect:

• the tropical forests in Indonesia from destruction to produce palm oil, wiping out the habitat of endangered orangutans; 
• the rainforests in Brazil from farmers for multinational agribusinesses destroying the ‘lungs of the world’, to raise beef, 
• pristine forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which are being flattened for oil and natural gas extraction;  
• the boreal forests and peatlands of Canada, including Ontario, and of Russia, carbon sinks that are being turned into carbon sources by global warming and by forest and mineral extractivism?  
  

All of these are, of course, the homelands of indigenous peoples.

Meanwhile in Ontario, biodiversity is undercut:.  

• The divide between COP15 and what’s happening in Ontario is galling
  (Toronto Star letter to the editor)
• The Provincial Government finalised changes to how Provincially Significant Wetlands are evaluated and protected from development. 

• See this overview of the achievements and failings of COP15 by The Energy Mix. 
• Read about Canada’ commitments in The Narwhal
• The inside story of COP15, hosted by China but held in Canada from The Toronto Star.
• Greenpeace: COP15 recognises Indigenous Peoples’ work, but won’t disarm the threat of mass extinction
• Climate Home News: UN summit highlights $700bn funding gap to restore nature

^{The Amazon Rainforest, Image credit. The Guardian, Jan. 3, 2023}
The Amazon Fund has been restored and just may enable the new President of Brazil, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, inaugurated on January 1st, 2023, to preserve the lungs of the world!

Bill McKibben, an American environmentalist and author, explains how the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act will bring the energy transition to 140 million homes, now that the Biden administration has put the financing in place. However, the battle is global. Read his analysis of the current issues in moving from exhortation and demonstration to execution and deployment in The New Yorker. You can also subscribe to his newsletter “The Crucial Years”.

Greenbelt Guardians Action: “Welcome Back” Doug Ford: Protection Rally
Tuesday, February 25th
Queen's Park , Toronto
SAVE THE DATE - more detail to come.

To learn more about Greenbelt Guardians or to get involved contact: lyn@climatefast.ca