Toronto’s mayor gets props for climate plan, but the budget may pose a challenge
Newly elected Mayor Olivia Chow has big plans and big promises to keep for Toronto’s ambitious climate goals. Considering the city’s budget woes, she’ll need to find ways to fund the city’s net-zero future.
Between Toronto’s budget crisis and the city’s ambitious — yet lagging — climate plan, there are some big challenges ahead for newly elected Mayor Olivia Chow. But climate advocates across Canada’s largest city say her climate platform, if realized, could help Toronto curb its emissions.
As it stands, Toronto has a budget shortfall of $1.5 billion. This is bad news for the city’s TransformTO Net Zero Strategy, which has the ambitious goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2040.
But according to Toronto Environmental Alliance’s campaign director Sarah Buchanan, Mayor Chow’s platform could help achieve this goal, if realized. Further, she said the new mayor appears to have some plans to help pay for them.
Chow’s policies include reversing service cuts to the Toronto Transit Commission, announced in the city’s recent budget. Public transit is “a big part of the city’s climate plan, to get people out of their cars and onto lower-carbon forms of transportation.”
“And that's, frankly, a really big area where the climate plan has been stalled, currently,” Buchanan told The Weather Network.
She added Toronto has the opportunity to be more of a leader on climate action in Canada, as long as it shows that it can make the moves it needs to. Additionally, as it’s the largest city in both Canada and Ontario, Toronto plays a huge role in Canada and the federal government meeting their climate targets.
Toronto's newly elected mayor Olivia Chow is seen in a wooded area. (Olivia Chow for Mayor of Toronto)
Cars and condos
Chow’s platform also pledges some improvements for green buildings. These include energy audits and efficiency retrofit financing for heating and cooling, with a focus on older builds with multiple units, particularly those used for housing by vulnerable populations.
The newly elected mayor’s platform also promised to expand the city’s building retrofit programs. One such program is the High-Rise Retrofit Improvement Support Program (or Hi-RIS), which provides “competitive fixed rates” on financing for home upgrades to “reduce energy and water consumption” in apartment buildings, according to the program’s website.
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Emissions from most Toronto homes come from the burning of natural gas to heat water.
Chow’s platform states that she will “work to ensure renters are protected from renovictions or rent increases related to green retrofits,” while ensuring municipal affordable housing is “climate safe and ready for a net-zero future.”
These two areas — buildings and transportation — could tackle a large chunk of Toronto’s emissions. Buildings were responsible for 8.2 megatonnes out of the city’s 14 megatonnes emitted in 2020, according to a report. Meanwhile, transportation made up 4.6 megatonnes of this sum, which is where investment in public transit could have an impact.
People and plans
Buchanan said it’s also important to protect residents from renovictions and similar strategies. This includes finding ways to protect them from landlords jacking up rent after performing green and energy efficiency retrofits. She said she was happy to see Chow’s platform offer these.
“I think that is a really important, really important priority and one we haven't seen in … many platforms,” she said.
That said, Toronto also needs to have a “serious and funded” plan to adapt to climate change, Buchanan said. She added that Toronto needs to find ways to prepare for longer and more extreme heat waves, extreme storms, and other impacts from the global heating caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
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“That's something we'd like to see any new mayor take more seriously and move on quite quickly," she said.
Chow’s platform suggests “[ramping up the enforcement] of RentSafeTO requirements to ensure tenants are notified of on-site and nearby cooling spaces.” These spaces include community pools, libraries, malls, etc.
However, Buchanan added the city should also take steps toward talking with different communities and groups across the city to learn more about how they experience climate change, a process that would inform future mitigation efforts.
“We know the science. We know what's coming. Let's look at that and make a serious plan to protect people, particularly people who are more vulnerable,” Buchanan said.
Lyn Adamson, a member of the Toronto Climate Action Network steering committee and co-chair of ClimateFast, sent candidates a climate commitment pledge during the election. Among other things, the pledge is a commitment to the TransformTO strategy, which comes with reduction benchmarks for 2025, 2030 and, ultimately, 2040 — the plan’s proposed net-zero year.
Chow is one of two signatories of the pledge. Adamson said she was happy to see the new mayor sign the pledge, but there are challenges ahead. Perhaps the largest of these challenges is money, considering “the funding for implementation has never matched the ambition of this plan,” she said.
It’s no small task to reach the net-zero strategy’s goals. For instance, it includes a stipulation that public transit be free by 2040, encouraging people to leave their cars at home. But, as of late, the city has been increasing fares and decreasing services.
And Toronto’s budget shortfalls may hinder the city’s net-zero plans, especially considering the federal government recently decided against providing funding to ease the city’s woes. However, Chow appears to be finding new sources of income, such as a commercial parking lot levy, slated to fund public transit.
“It's good to see that there are commitments to actually finding the money to do some of these big actions,” Buchanan said.
Buchanan noted the municipal government’s ability to fund these projects may come down to funds from the federal government (which isn’t panning out), the provincial government, and the private sector. Adamson added public support for Toronto’s net-zero plans will also be invaluable.
“How do we engage the whole of the public in bringing our emissions down? Because it's a huge change,” she said. “We're asking society to make an absolutely huge transformation.”
Thumbnail image: Toronto's newly elected Mayor Olivia Chow is seen near a Toronto Transit Commission streetcar. (Olivia Chow for Mayor of Toronto)
