On October 21st, CAFES' Executive Director, Angela Keller-Herzog, delivered an impactful public delegation on the Climate Resiliency Strategy at the Environment and Climate Change Committee meeting.
The City of Ottawa's long-anticipated Climate Resiliency Strategy, entitled Climate Ready Ottawa, sets a comprehensive strategy and five-year action plan for how Ottawa can take concrete measures for climate readiness. Building on the 2022 Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assessment, this strategy is a major achievement and is especially timely given the increased floods, heat waves, storms and wildfire smoke that Ottawa has experienced in recent years. CAFES commended the strategy for its comprehensiveness, inclusion of a high level action plan, clear identification of departmental roles, the inclusion of some performance indicators, its equity lens, and its integration of public health, such as the risks of heat and floods to residents.
Following internal discussions at the Oct 14 CAFES Climate Caucus, the delegation also identified several gaps, including that Nature-Based solutions like forests, wetlands, parks and urban green infrastructure have been underplayed as essential infrastructure for climate resilience in Ottawa. Despite their critical role, wetlands in particular are facing devastating loss in the Ottawa region due to climate changes, increased development, expansion, and a weakened Ontario Wetland Evaluation System. CAFES also pointed out that the strategy is missing links to zoning and land-use (essential tools), and that rural resiliency and protection of the Ottawa River shoreline have been under-addressed.
CAFES also noted that the $25M funding over five years is insufficient, that there was little attention to energy resilience, storage and grid reliability, and that time-bound performance targets need to be clearly identified (for increasing the tree canopy and heat-related illnesses, for example). CAFES recommended the following:
Check out the accompanying delegation presentation below.
