One of the most discussed issues after infrastructure at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) this weekend was climate change. FCM has been supporting municipal work on climate change for many years through their partnership program and the Green Municipal Fund.
At the conference, their Environmental Issues and Sustainable Development Committee announced the launch of an FCM-led effort to implement an International Local Government Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol, to measure and report on municipal GHG reduction efforts.
Several other sessions focussed on this issue including one that outlined FCM’s new initiative to assist municipalities in creating sellable carbon dioxide reduction credits.
Jack Layton, Elizabeth May, Stéphane Dion and Gille Duceppe all spoke at the conference and each either touched on the need for a carbon cap-and-trade system and/or were questioned on the topic.
Interestingly, as these discussions were proceeding, Premiers McGuinty and Charest were bringing their two cabinets together to sign an accord on fighting climate change. The accord will establish a market-based trading system to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Given the size of the two provincial economies, this initiative could lay the foundation for a national cap-and-trade program.
British Columbia and Manitoba also signed on to a similar initiative last year – the Western Climate Initiative – along with five U.S. states.
The leadership demonstrated by these provinces will assist Guelph in achieving the goals set out in our community energy plan.
Filed under: Healthy Environment
One important point you may have overlooked was that it was the Federal Government that gave the FCM an endowment of $550 million dollars. It is with this federal money that the FCM is able to provide municipalities funds through the GMF.