The BC Climate Action Toolkit is a tool to help BC local governments reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen communities. It is a live network that provides the latest news, best practices, practical advice, and strategic guidance to inspire action in municipalities across the province. Learn how local governments can make significant contributions to climate change mitigation on their website.
Centre for Civic Governance
The Centre for Civic Governance works to support community leadership meeting today’s social and environmental challenges: climate change, Canada’s increasing equity gap, and shifting social trends. At the Centre for Civic Governance, our goal is to strengthen Canadian communities through sharing best practices, providing tools for locally elected leaders, and progressive policy analysis. We strive to provide knowledge and information to make real and positive social change.
Niagara Region joins green municipal marketing machine
The Niagara Region is uniting with nine other southern Ontario municipalities to lure green energy firms and investors. Niagara has been attempting to shift to a green economy for the last decade, and the newly-established Green Energy Act and provincial tariff program for renewable energy projects has allowed them to pitch southern Ontario as a green energy destination. Read the full story in the St. Catherines Standard.
The GTA region’s rise and sprawl
Ontario received international praise for Places to Grow, its strategy to reduce urban sprawl. Today however, planning decisions made in certain municipalities threaten its success. The plan gives municipalities a large amount of flexibility in attaining its goals, allowing some of them to deviate from intended responses to increased population growth. Read the full story in the Toronto Star.
Vancouver 2020: A Bright Green Future
“Vancouver 2020: A Bright Green Future” is the City of Vancouver’s action plan for becoming a world leader in environmental sustainability by the year 2020. A sustainable Vancouver is a community that unites short and long term economic, social and environmental well-being, thereby enhancing the quality of life for current and future citizens. The report, which was written by the Greenest City Action Team, sets out a long term vision and list of goals in the areas of green economy, green communities, and human health.
Jobs, Justice, Climate: Building a Green Economy for BC
The Columbia Institute report "Jobs, Justice, Climate: Building a Green Economy" states that BC can increase employment and social justice while actively pursuing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets. A green jobs strategy would protect and create thousands of jobs while reducing BC’s carbon footprint, and could include actions such as expansion of transit systems, enabling energy efficiency retrofits in housing, promoting local agricultural production, and improving current carbon taxation schemes.
The 2011 Most Sustainable Cities in Canada
The most recent Corporate Knights Sustainable Cities ranking gave top marks to Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto for their commitments to ecological integrity, economic security, infrastructure and built environment, governance and empowerment, and social well-being. As urban migration increases and climate change worsens the looming environmental crisis, metropolitan sustainability initiatives will become more important. Read the full story in Corporate Knights.
How Green School Buildings Help Children Grow
New research is showing that BC’s shift towards green schools may be producing healthier, more productive, and more environmentally aware students. Canadian and American studies have shown that the improved natural light, air quality and acoustics required in green buildings help meet the educational and health needs of children and teachers far better than traditional buildings. Read the full story in The Tyee.
Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change
In 2006 Professor Sir Nicholas Stern, a world expert in economics and climate change, released the “Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change“. This extensive report addresses the economics of moving towards a low-carbon global economy, stating that the benefits of strong, immediate climate action far outweigh the financial costs of a business-as-usual approach. Stern provides the economic evidence to prove that the while there are significant costs required to stabilize the planet, the alternative would not only be more expensive, but also very dangerous.
Homelessness on the Rise in Metro Vancouver’s Suburbs
A two-part series in Megaphone Magazine explores the rise of homelessness in the suburbs and what municipalities are doing to address the issue. Read the article here.
Canadian Values More Liberal than Ever Before
A recent poll conducted by Focus Canada shows that Canadians are more supportive of gay marriage and abortion than ever before and are less supportive of capital punishment. "Focus Canada’s survey finds Canadians’ top spending priorities to be education, health care, elderly programs, the environment and reducing child poverty." Read Jeffrey Simpson’s editorial in the Globe and Mail.
Alberta’s Conservatives’ Push to Expand Electrical May Backfire
In a push to increase Alberta’s power grid, the Conservative government has introduced several pieces of legislation that concentrate power into the hands of government while severely limiting, or in some cases eliminating, individual land rights. These draconian policies may result in new party governing the province. Read story in the Tyee.
The World Will be Fundamentally Different
A climate change model that projects a view of the world a thousand years from now, based on current greenhouse gas emission levels maintained for the next hundred years, shows a fundamentally different world than what we see today. Most coral reefs will have disappeared along with famed ski hills, and oceans will have risen 4 metres, sinking entire coastlines. The model is a joint project between the Universities of Calgary and Victoria and Environment Canada. Read story in the Montreal Gazette here.