Both the federal government and Humber College in the past week announced climate action plans aimed at achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
At an announcement on Tuesday in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released the government’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan with a goal to cut emissions by 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
“This is a global competition with our natural resources, our skilled workforce, and our strong financial system. Canada stands to benefit substantially by increasing our climate ambition,” Steven Guilbeault, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, said at the announcement.
“We’ve been through more than two years of pandemic lockdowns, international conflict, misinformation wars, but the climate crisis will still be with us when other crises have passed, so we have to redouble our efforts,” Guilbeault added.
If the climate action plan is successful and the targets are reached, Canada will be on track for its goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Meanwhile, Humber College in Toronto also recently released its own climate action plan, with the same goal.
“Responding to the climate emergency is critically important to Humber. As we live our key value of sustainability, we are driven by decisions to enhance our commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and the health and wellness of the college community,” said Aman Hehar in a press release.
Hehar is the associate director of Energy and Climate Change at Humber College, Office of Sustainability.
The 2020-2021 Humber Sustainability Report showed that Humber College was named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for the sixth year in a row, and the college ranked 54th out of 312 institutions surveyed in the Sierra Cool Schools Ranking in 2020.
In that same ranking when other Canadian schools are considered, Humber had the 5th best score.
The college also received an Award of Excellence and Tree For Life Award at the Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards for the renovation of the NX building at the North Campus, turning one of the campus’s most inefficient buildings into one of Canada’s first retrofits to achieve a Zero Carbon Building Design.
NX also received Passive House Certification and became the first non-residential building in Canada to receive this certification.
The prime minister said that the goal of the federal government’s plan to fight climate change in Canada is to make it easier for Canadians to switch to electric vehicles, make the homes, buildings and grid greener, reduce oil and gas emissions while helping industries to adopt clean technology and transition to net-zero emissions, and create jobs.
“There are elements of our plan including our plan to create jobs and keep the air clean by making life more easier and affordable for the middle class,” Trudeau said.
“We’re bringing in new mandatory ZEV (zero-emission vehicles) sales targets of 20 per cent by 2026 and 60 per cent of all new personal vehicles sold in Canada will be zero-emission by 2030,” he said.
“The transition to a cleaner, prosperous, and more competitive economy must be an immediate priority and a sustained effort in the years ahead,” said Jonathan Wilkinson, the Minister of Natural Resources.
Humber’s plan addresses three scopes, Scope 1 and 2 being the greenhouse gas emissions that the college, owns, has control over, or are from the generation of purchased energy and Scope 3 emissions are out of the college’s direct control.
- Retrofitting existing building envelopes and modifying controls.
- Optimizing existing building energy performance.
- Replacing natural gas heating equipment with decarbonized options.
- Converting existing steam distribution to low-temperature hot water and electrifying heating sources.
- Ensuring new builds meet energy-efficient and zero-carbon standards.
With its three-scope climate action plan, the college is hoping to become a model for others to follow.
“Our Climate Action Plan is the next part of our long-standing efforts to lead climate change action, especially in the post-secondary sector,” Hehar said.