Reward Offered for Mayor’s Missing Climate Change Plan
May 23, 2007, Ottawa – A local group says Mayor Larry O’Brien’s climate change strategy is missing, and they’re willing to pay a $500 reward to the first person that finds it. Ecology Ottawa says the Mayor and City Council are completely adrift on the issue of climate change, since the Mayor voted against the City’s previous strategy in the lead-up to the 2007 budget vote.
“Three-quarters of the world's greenhouse gases are emitted from cities. That’s where the fight against climate change will be lost or won,” said Ecology Ottawa coordinator Graham Saul. “But if Mayor O'Brien has a plan to ensure that Ottawa does its fair share to fight climate change, we haven't been able to find it.”
An Air Quality and Climate Change Management Plan was approved by City Council in 2004, but Mayor O'Brien voted against a motion to support the plan in the lead-up to the 2007 budget vote.
Ecology Ottawa’s Liz Bernstein said that if O’Brien voted against the City of Ottawa's existing plan, then he must have an alternative plan around somewhere. “Inaction on climate change is not an option. If the Mayor doesn’t like the previous plan, then we need to find out where he is hiding his own strategy. We’re hoping the reward will help,” she said.
Reward posters will begin appearing throughout the city today and Ecology Ottawa will form a Search Party to search City Hall and other locations for the missing strategy.
The reward is to be paid in the form of a 500 dollar gift certificate from Bullfrog power, an electricity retailer that buys power exclusively from renewable sources.
Ecology Ottawa has put together an expert panel to make sure the plan is authentic. The panel will be looking for a plan with four components: a well-founded forecast of what emissions would be without action, a significant emissions reduction target, a prescribed set of activities for reducing emissions, and a way to measure and report results. And of course, they'll be looking for the plan that Mayor O'Brien calls his own.
