Oakville releases progress report on climate emergency response

It’s been two years since the town declared a climate emergency. Council received a report at Monday’s meeting outlining the significant progress the town and community have made to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“Town Council continues to recognize the importance of climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, sustainable energy use, related environmental issues and the need for a more sustainable and resilient town,” said Mayor Rob Burton. “The entire community — including town staff and Council, businesses and residents — has come together to make fighting a climate crisis a priority and while a great deal has been achieved, there is still much work to do. Council and I are excited about the many great initiatives both underway and planned in our community.”

In June 2019, the Town of Oakville joined hundreds of municipalities across Canada in declaring a climate emergency to raise awareness of the critical need to reduce community greenhouse gas emissions and increase our resiliency to extreme weather. The declaration stressed the need for community action along with clear and achievable targets to improve our community’s overall energy efficiency.

To inform this decision, staff presented the portfolio of initiatives already taking place across the corporation and community to address climate change.

The town has over a decade of environmental leadership to address climate change. Many of those actions are being led by departments and teams across the Town of Oakville who will continue to embed a climate lens into their work.

The staff report to Council outlined progress made over the past year by or in collaboration with staff, that specifically addresses the six deliverables of the Climate Emergency Declaration.

In 2020–2021, the town:

Council also approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Halton Environmental Network regarding a collaboration to continue to deliver the OakvilleReady program which aims to build community resilience to extreme weather through education and the establishment of neighbourhood hubs.

For more information, review the Climate Emergency Declaration Progress Report (Item 9.3 in the June 21, 2021 Council agenda).