Durham Region declares climate change an emergency

By Dave Flaherty/The Oshawa Express

The Region of Durham has officially declared climate change as an emergency situation.

At its Jan. 29 meeting, regional council passed a lengthy resolution that reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for future climate challenges should be treated as high priorities in all budget and policy decisions.

Regional staff has been directed to review Durham’s climate change plans, then develop a new system including emission reduction targets for 2025, 2030, and 2050, as well as corporate climate action plans for the next five years.

The resolution also calls for a staff report on the region’s new reserve fund for climate change mitigation and environmental issues.

Council also wants the provincial and federal governments to accelerate strategies to address climate change and provide more comprehensive resources for municipalities and the public.

Ward 4 city and regional councillor Rick Kerr said he supports the general intent of the resolution but questioned calling climate change an emergency.

Kerr said Durham Region has one of the lowest emissions levels in the GTA, and 43 per cent of those emissions come from vehicular traffic.

“We are a commuter region,” Kerr said, estimating tens of thousands of residents are driving through the region for work every day.

He questioned whether the region is asking motorists to pay thousands of dollars more for electric vehicles, or farmers to somehow do their daily work without fossil fuels.

“It’s an undue cost on our residents,” he said.

Kerr believes climate change is an important issue, but council’s resolution was going too far.

“This is not an emergency. It is a need, it is a requirement,” Kerr said. “I just don’t like the gloom and doom.”

Whitby Mayor Don Mitchell took the exact opposite viewpoint from Kerr.

“It’s the biggest threat we’ve ever faced, and has to be everyone’s top priority,” he said.

Mitchell said there has always been an option to “do nothing.”

“Which is why we’ve always fundamentally done nothing,” he said.
He adds many in society, including himself, have “lived in a bubble of privilege.”

“Because we’ve never imagined how bad this can get,” he said.

Clarington councillor Joe Neal thought the resolution was steeped in hypocrisy because council is also considering increasing capacity at the Durham York Energy Centre.

“I don’t see how you can reconcile that with what is here. Durham Region is kind of playing both sides of the fence in my mind,” Neal said.

Brian Kelly is the former manager of sustainability for the region, and he quit his position in May 2019 in protest of what he calls the region’s lack of support for climate action plans.

Kelly is now part of the FridaysForFuture movement, a campaign developed by 17-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, aimed at addressing climate change.

While he supports the region’s resolution, he said community emissions reduction targets set a decade ago need to be modernized.

In 2010, council set targets to reduce the community’s emissions by five per cent by 2015, 20 per cent by 2020, and 80 per cent in 2050.

When Kerr asked if those targets had been met, Kelly replied they had been “easily” achieved but not by the region’s actions.

He said the impact of the 2008 recession on the local manufacturing sector, and the elimination of coal plants in Ontario are the reasons for the reduced emissions.

Kelly called on council to set new emission reduction targets of 25 per cent by 2025, 50 per cent by 2030, 75 per cent by 2040, and net-zero emissions by 2050.
“The science essentially tells us we have to half our emissions each decade over the next three decades,” he said.

But Kerr wanted to know how Kelly proposes the region achieve this.
“You open a huge question. Lots of work has to be done on how to reduce these emissions,” Kelly responded.

Neal said if Canada were to move away from fossil fuels such as gas and oil, it would cripple the economy in western provinces, while “the US and China just continue unabated.”

However, Kelly argued any “informed opinion” from western Canada would agree “we cannot just continue to use fossil fuels.”

He said many studies show employment supported by green energy projects would outreach those of fossil fuel industries.

Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster raised concerns about the sheer costs of battling climate change.

However, Kelly said those expenses are already a reality.

He said home insurance premiums have doubled in the past few years, mostly due to the effects of climate change.

“We are already – in insurance costs and a number of other ways – bearing the costs of climate change,” he said.

He called for councillors not to look at climate change as an economic burden, but the “financial opportunity of the century.”

Uxbridge Mayor Dave Barton questioned how the region could continue its current levels of service while also meeting these reduction targets.

However, Kelly said his message was not about “taking police off the roads or not cleaning water.”

“You should not look at targets and think that it means a reduction in service to citizens,” Kelly said. “We’re talking about doing it more effectively and less carbon dependent.”

Adeline Cohen, a Brooklin teenager who attends O’Neill Collegiate and Vocational Institute, told council fighting climate change is no longer about prevention because “it’s already happened.”

“We’re not asking you to drop anything else, [but] it really can’t be secondary. Climate change is really nothing that can be stopped, it will be only something that can be survived,” Cohen said.

Cohen said her generation has very little faith in the ability of government to address climate change.

She said if councillors told most teenagers they have a plan, “they would laugh in your face.”

“Your choice, if you choose to take it, is to prove them wrong,” Cohen stated.