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June 15, 2018 - 5:00 PM
KELOWNA - The city has given up trying to meet greenhouse gas emission targets it set for 2017, although efforts to lower them should be continued.
Instead, staff say the city should revise its corporate emissions target to 12 per cent below 2007 levels by 2022.
That number is far short of the 10-year, 22 per cent reduction target the city set for itself when it signed on to the B.C Climate Action Charter in 2007.
The aim then was for signatories to the charter to become carbon neutral by 2012, a report by energy manager Brydan Tollefson says.
In a bid to meet the target, the city has undertaken numerous projects designed to reduce the energy footprint of its corporate operations.
Having failed to achieve carbon neutrality, city will now join a group of B.C. municipalities that are deemed as “making progress towards” the goal.
Although the city missed its target, some progress has been made, with a reduction of seven per cent in greenhouse gas emissions in 2016 as compared to 2007.
Since then, however, the city has also seen a three per cent increase in energy use and a 40 per cent increase in energy costs while growing in population by 17 per cent, the report says.
However, if the city can keep the same downward trajectory of reducing total emissions by one per cent a year, Tollefson estimates the city will save $4 million over five years.
Had the city done nothing over the last decade, Tollefson estimates emissions would be 9,000 tonnes or 17 per cent higher than the 7,700 tonnes they are today with costs 11 per cent higher.
Kelowna spent $8.65 million in 2016 on corporate energy use.
Kelowna council will receive the report at its public meeting, 1:30 p.m. June 18 at Kelowna city hall.
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