Oakville releases progress report one year after declaring a climate emergency

Wed, 15 Jul 2020

One year after declaring a climate emergency, the Town of Oakville has released a progress report outlining the significant progress the town and community have made to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“We now know that the emission of greenhouse gases is the largest human influence on climate change. Following the climate emergency declaration the entire community — including town staff and Council, businesses and residents — has come together to make fighting a climate crisis a priority,” said Mayor Rob Burton. “While a great deal has been achieved, there is still much work to do. Council and I are excited about the many great initiatives both underway and planned in our community.”

In June 2019, the Town of Oakville joined hundreds of municipalities across Canada in declaring a climate emergency to raise awareness of the critical need to reduce community greenhouse gas emissions and increase our resiliency to extreme weather. The declaration stressed the need for community action along with clear and achievable targets to improve our community’s overall energy efficiency.

Key highlights from the Climate Emergency Progress Report

In 2019-2020, the town:

• developed key community partnerships to engage the community in climate action, including Halton Climate Collective, OakvilleReady, and Oakville Energy Task Force
• achieved 20 per cent reduction in corporate greenhouse gas emissions from a 2014 baseline by implementing lighting retrofits and improvements to existing building automation systems at town facilities
• finalized the Community Energy Strategy putting Oakville on track to achieving ambitious 2041 energy efficiency, emissions reduction and local economic stimulus goals and is currently moving forward with community partners on the Strategy’s priority projects and developing a not-for-profit organization to govern future implementation
• through the OakvilleReady pilot project, established seven neighbourhood extreme weather resiliency hubs using faith-based organizations to support the community in extreme weather or other high-risk events
• was selected as one of 25 municipalities to join the first national Showcase Cities program led by the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) Canada. Throughout 2020 and beyond, the town will receive intensive support to help reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change
• established a corporate Climate Lens Tool pilot, to develop a corporate culture that integrates climate change into all decision making

The town has implemented climate change policies and energy conservation programs since 2005 and has taken significant steps to reduce its impact on the environment. In 2018, Oakville's Energy Task Force was formed, comprising a team of 21 community leaders from local businesses, government, utilities, schools and community groups to advise and champion the development and implementation of a Community Energy Strategy.  

Review the full 2019-2020 Climate Emergency Progress Report on our Climate Change page.