Saskatoon mayor defends proposed plan to fight climate change

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark says a new city report is a good starting point for a conversation on how to fight climate change.

The Low Emissions Community (LEC) Plan released by city staff on Thursday lays out a 30-year blueprint for slashing emissions and slowing down the effects of a warming planet.

Clark defended the report on 650 CKOM Monday when talk show host John Gormley suggested some of the 40 proposed actions in the report are “borderline crazy.”

“It can create jobs by people going in and fixing up buildings that are leaky and just wasting energy up into the atmosphere,” Clark said in defence.

“I am not committing to mandating building energy codes or capping energy as a result of receiving this report. “We are going to work through it with the community.”

The report pegs the city’s carbon footprint at 3.85 million tonnes of carbon emitted in 2014.

Clark said sustainability is the direction cities across North America are moving toward, and Saskatoon risks getting left behind if it doesn’t take actions as a community.

“I’ve been talking to companies like Nutrien, like BHP, like Federated Co-op. They all recognize sustainability is the practical way to go.

“That’s the way we’re going to look at this.”

Clark said the city has already made positive strides in this direction, pointing to the methane capture facility at the landfill, the new police station and switching to LED lights at city pools.

The report will be presented to the city’s environment, utilities and corporate services committee for consideration on Aug. 6.