How a multi-billion dollar plan envisions cutting Moncton emissions

More than two years after declaring a climate emergency, Moncton councillors gave tentative approval Monday to a multi-billion dollar plan seeking to slash emissions over the next 28 years.

Maurya Braun of Sustainability Solutions Group, a firm hired by the city to prepare the community energy and emissions plan, told councillors it would entail challenges.

"The financing may be challenging," Braun said. "Certainly the capacity, scale and speed of the change that's required is challenging, and it will require some fundamental changes in behaviour and culture that we're not used to as municipalities, and we're not used to as citizens."

The plan lays out 31 steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero levels by 2050. Net-zero means emitting no greenhouse gas or offsetting remaining emissions in an attempt to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The plan targets not just municipal emissions but those of the overall city from homes, businesses and transportation.

It calls for the city to implement new rules to ensure denser residential development, reorient the city toward electric vehicles, increase the use of renewable energy and retrofit buildings to make them more efficient. 

Braun outlined the plan at a committee meeting Monday where councillors voted unanimously to approve it in principle. City staff were directed to further analyze its potential financial impacts and look at what steps the city can legally implement before the plan is further approved. 

The plan estimates the cost could be about $4.7 billion to achieve the target by 2050. It suggests it would translate to a return of $7 billion over the same timeframe based on reduced energy and carbon tax costs.

Much of that includes spending by individuals, businesses and other levels of government.

The municipal spending is expected to total $131.5 million and could require a tax rate increase, though city staff cautioned the full impact is not yet clear. 

"Because these initiatives have not been fully developed, it is not yet possible to indicate the full breadth of their long-term financial implications," a staff report to council notes. 

"However, the scope of the recommendations suggests that the cost of the various actions is substantial and will likely impact the long-term capital plan, future operating budgets, and both debt and tax levels required to achieve the plan objectives."

Among the 31 measures the plan calls for are rewriting municipal building standards to force denser, mixed use development and require new homes be built to net-zero emissions standards by 2030. The plan says about 55 per cent of emissions in the city are tied to powering, heating and cooling buildings.

It calls for tracking and then reducing the number of buildings heated by fossil fuels, aiming to cut the number of properties using fuel oil by 75 per cent as of 2035.