Toronto makes ‘A-list’ in ranking of cities preparing for climate change

Jeremy Hodges
May 15, 2019
Thestar.com

Cities including Toronto are stepping up efforts to slash pollution, often wresting the fight against climate change away from national governments.

That’s the conclusion of CDP, a non-profit group that pushes institutions to detail their greenhouse-gas emissions. The group included Toronto on a list of 43 cities around the world to receive an A grade out of out of 625 considered.

Almost 7 per cent of the 625 cities that took part in the report were given the highest rating -- joining the CDP “A-list.” Among the top scoring, only 28 have set goals for carbon neutrality (balancing emissions of greenhouse gases), climate neutrality (designing wider policies to reduce the overall impact of human activity to the environment) or cutting emissions by half or more.

The other Canadian cities to make the list were Calgary and North Vancouver.

CDP gives an “A” rating to any city that reports publicly on its climate adaptation and action plans as well as reporting on emissions inventories and reduction targets. The worst performing cities are handed a “D” although CDP doesn’t make those public.

In Toronto, city council has approved the TransformTO climate change strategy, which aims to to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions along with other benefits. The city has set the goal of reducing emissions, based on 1990 levels, by 30 per cent by 2020, 65 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050.

Cities are often able to move faster than their national counterparts, CDP says. The group credited 15 cities including London, Sydney and Boston with going even going even further than the A-list cities by setting out the most rigorous plans to achieve carbon or climate neutrality by 2050.

And an even smaller group, consisting of five cities including Paris and San Francisco, have set themselves 100 per cent renewable energy targets. Reykjavik, population 123,000, says it already uses 100 per cent renewable power. How fast other cities get to that point is largely down to the policies they enact.

Paris gets 35 per cent of its energy from clean sources, and San Francisco gets almost 60 per cent of its power from renewables, CDP said.

The moves are evidence of ambition by local authorities to do their part in reining in global warming, almost two-thirds of global emissions come from cities. CDP wants to draw attention to their actions to encourage others to make similar commitments.
“Cities are doing a lot of the work, but they can’t get there alone,” said Kyra Appleby, global director of cities, states and regions at CDP. “Businesses need to act, national governments need to act as well, people need to change their own behaviour in order for us to limit carbon emissions.”

Since the 2015 Paris Agreement that committed the world to slowing down global warming, the narrative has shifted from a problem that the world faces in the future to an issue that exists today. That was sped up by a 2018 United Nations report that spelled out the need for rapid action to grapple with a warming planet -- and what would happen to ecosystems if temperatures increased another half degree Celsius.

“Cities are real hot spots of innovation, business and human life on earth so it’s crucial that cities are acting in order for us to meet the targets,” Appleby said.