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Council approves plan to slash its carbon footprint

A plan to slash the city’s carbon footprint was given the green light by council on Tuesday.

A plan to slash the city’s carbon footprint was given the green light by council on Tuesday.

By a vote of 6-2 Red Deer city council approved the 2010 Corporate Greenhouse Gas Inventory report as another tool in its Environmental Master Plan (EMP).

Lauren Maris, environmental program specialist, told council based on numbers from 2010 that Red Deer’s corporate emissions were 137,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. The inventory took into account electricity, natural gas, refrigerant, diesel and gasoline use in all city-owned buildings.

The city’s plan is to reduce the emissions by 30 per cent or 95, 900 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2020 and 50 per cent or 68,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2035.

Maris said they are aggressive targets but ones they can reach by following through on the proposed reduction strategies that take into account population growth.

Measures include promoting better driving practices, a green procurement policy, capital investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy and innovations in low carbon technologies.

With a baseline established, the city will continue to calculate its emissions annually.

This is the first step before the city turns to calculating the community’s carbon footprint. Maris said the work plan for this year is to scope out what will be included in the community inventory. The actual work will get underway in 2014.

Councillors Chris Stephan and Paul Harris voted against the adoption of the plan.

Harris said he would like the city to explore waste-to-energy options ­— something that is not in the plans.

“If you look at the planning tool itself, it compares what other municipalities across Alberta are doing,” said Harris. “We are just a middle of the pack approach to it. I don’t think we have taken into account some of the innovative strategies that are done in other municipalities in the world where they are actually taking the waste stream and converting it into electricity and heating for district heating and energy.”

Harris said the city has an opportunity to take what could be a cost and transfer it to a revenue side of the balance sheet. That solves a problem and helps the community at the same time. He added the report is based on today’s current and not the future technologies.

Coun. Tara Veer was absent.

crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com