The City of Kimberley had completed its Climate Action Report for 2013, and will be submitting it to the province.
Since signing the Climate Action Charter in 2007, Kimberley committed to the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2012. Communities who signed the charter are eligible to receive a grant which offsets the carbon tax.
In addition to striving for carbon neutrality, communities must measure and report on greenhouse gas emissions and work towards being a “complete, compact and energy efficient community”.
While it has been generally acknowledged that reaching carbon neutrality is not a realistic goal, Kimberley’s GHG emissions were down considerably in 2013 — to 1,236 tons of carbon dioxide emitted from 1,612 in 2012. This was primarily due to a major upgrade at the Aquatic Centre, which was one of the biggest GHG producers, as well as continued behavioural shifts.
Coun. Jack Ratcliffe, in addressing the issue, said he would take the opportunity to “rant”.
Ratcliffe said that while there was no doubt that climate change is occurring, he was not impressed with the way the whole world was addressing it.
He pointed out that Canada was well down the list in terms of emissions. In fact, he said, the yearly increase in emissions from the biggest offender, China, was larger than Canada’s total emissions.
“This needs a massive action, something on the scale of the Manhatten Project, and we’re messing around changing light bulbs,” Ratcliffe said.
Coun. Kent Goodwin said that while he agreed that greater action needed to be taken, Canada’s emissions were low due to a low population density and per capita emissions were close to the highest in the world.
“But absolutely, changing light bulbs is not going to do it,” he said.