Cities have a crucial role to play in tackling the climate crisis. In Canada, cities have the ability to influence roughly half of all greenhouse gas emissions. Since we’re responsible for nearly seven million tonnes of GHG emissions, Ottawa needs to do its part. That’s one reason why the work of City Council’s Environment and Climate Change Committee is so important.
Unfortunately, despite having a mandate touching on nearly every environmental issue, the ECCC is limited to meeting only six times a year. This means the agenda for the September 16th meeting is packed. (If only someone had warned that fewer meetings would result in an untenable number of agenda items during the city’s Mid-term Governance Review back in January.)
Here is a breakdown of three issues that will be covered at the meeting. (Also on the agenda: Solid Waste Collection and Diversion Strategy, the Provincial Bluebox Program, and IESO Procurement - which you should also read about!)
Emissions inventory and CCMP progress update
The City of Ottawa’s Climate Change Master Plan commits to annual reporting on the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, staff haven’t released GHG reports since 2021. The good news? We now finally have data for 2024! The bad news? The City isn’t doing very well on its emissions reduction efforts.
Community GHG emissions in Ottawa over time, per September 2025 staff report. Trajectory targets are based on commitments made in the city’s CCMP.
The City divides emissions into two categories: "corporate emissions," which are produced directly by city operations and accounts for about 4% of the total, and "community emissions" - or, everything else. Since the latter are 96% of our total GHG emissions, we'll focus on them here.
The CCMP commits to a 43% community emissions reduction by 2025 and a 68% reduction by 2030. Despite City Council declaring a climate emergency back in 2019, we are not making anywhere near the urgent progress we need to be on this front.
The staff report shows community emissions are only five percent lower than the 2012 baseline. What the report doesn’t mention explicitly is that these emissions are higher than they were in 2019. That makes us worse off than the pre-pandemic “normal.” Transportation emissions comprise 44% of total community emissions and are five percent higher in real terms than the 2012 baseline, and nine percent higher than 2019.
Community emissions breakdown for Ottawa as of 2024, by sector and source.
There's a lot more in the report; we recommend you read it!
Tree canopy progress update
Ottawa’s Official Plan sets an urban tree canopy target of 40% – the recommended level for a healthy, sustainable urban tree canopy. Across the entire city, we have reached 36% as of 2022, when the latest data was obtained.
Having more trees, anywhere at all, is a good thing. But while rural areas are responsible for nearly all tree growth, tree cover is lower in at least eight urban and suburban areas, with progress at best stagnant in the others. The tree canopy within the urban boundary appears to have decreased to 20.6% from 21.5% (this may be within the margin of error, so best case scenario is that progress has been minimal or non-existent).
Urban and suburban residents already have the lowest tree canopy. This is why we have been advocating for the 40% target to be applied on a neighbourhood basis rather than citywide.
Response to the Audit
In 2023, Council passed a motion presented by Councillor David Hill recommending emissions reduction efforts focus on corporate emissions rather than community emissions. Municipal operations account for a mere 4% of total emissions. Meanwhile, the city has an outsized influence over reducing emissions across the city – especially in the transportation, housing, and waste sectors.
In February 2024, the City’s Office of the Auditor General published an audit of City staff's implementation of the CCMP, making seven recommendations for improvement. The first two were due for a response from staff by Q2 of 2025. City staff recently released their response, which will now be discussed at ECCC.
The Auditor-General's first two recommendations were that staff 1) clarify the City's role in catalyzing community action, and 2) establish “a holistic and realistic list of priority projects to address both mitigation and adaptation concurrently to achieve the City’s climate change goals.” In the new report, City staff propose a “streamlined” and “phased” approach to reducing both corporate emissions directly and community emissions “through partnerships and coordinated efforts.”
Highlighting that the impacts of climate change are already costing the City (they cite $36M in the last eight years), staff emphasize the need for adaptation efforts. On mitigation, three priorities for reducing community emissions (96% of the total) are identified:
- “Continue delivering existing” building retrofit programs
- “Develop and implement a District Energy Strategy and advance community energy plans with partners (e.g., utilities), and advance policy and incentive tools through municipal housing projects on City-owned surplus lands within the City’s authority”
- “Support and enable” EV charging infrastructure with partners and via zoning
For a city with over a million residents, and an annual budget of nearly $7 billion, a lot more can be done to tackle the climate crisis we are facing. Pivoting from lavish spending on costly road widening projects to investments in fast, frequent, affordable transit and safe cycling infrastructure, and accelerating incentives for building retrofits would curb emissions and make the city greener, healthier, and more affordable for all.
Let’s push Ottawa to meet the urgency of the climate crisis.
Speak out!
- Delegate to speak at the September 16th ECCC meeting by emailing [email protected]
- Email ECC committee members today using our contact sheet
