In this episode of Action for Canada's Eye on Calgary, we take a look at what our city council has been up to since the declaration of the "Climate Emergency" in November of 2021. In this episode, we will cover the document itself, as well as some of the ideas that have been explored by City Councillors since then.
00:00:00.000Hello and welcome to part two of Action for Canada's Eye on Calgary. This is a follow-up to
00:00:10.020part one. If you have not yet seen part one please find that on Action for Canada's rumble page.
00:00:18.960Let's begin. We have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to taking a look at what our city
00:00:28.440councillors have been up to in regard to the declaration of the climate emergency
00:00:34.260and that's their 2050 climate agenda. In this video we hope to accomplish the
00:00:49.320following. We would like you to understand the 2050 climate document. It is a big
00:00:56.140document. It is approximately 100 pages. We would like you to understand the
00:01:02.080documents relation to the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development
00:01:08.020also known as the 17 sustainable development goals which were established
00:01:14.560by the United Nations in 2015 and how the city is using this to do much of their
00:01:25.140city planning particularly in regard to the land use planning such as their
00:01:30.120bylaws and their infrastructure planning mobility planning and also many of their
00:01:37.740water restrictions. I will say right now that water restrictions and anything
00:01:45.600regarding water will have to be left for another video as this one is going to be
00:01:53.460plenty long without having that within this video so keep an eye out for a video
00:02:00.780hopefully talking about our water restrictions in the near future and really
00:02:06.080this is to empower you as a citizen of Calgary to be able to speak and share with
00:02:13.320others how the city is making decisions for you and for the people that it is
00:02:19.380supposed to be serving and before we start down many of the rabbit holes I wanted to bring your
00:02:29.220attention to a couple of items that I discussed in the first video one of those was within the
00:02:38.580declaration the mayor made reference to resilient cities network and I would like to pull that up again just to bring a couple of things to your
00:02:54.000attention from that actual document that I did not talk about in the first video and I took a
00:03:02.580screenshot here of the the the layout the table of contents of that just a part of it and one of the
00:03:13.480things that really stuck out to me was here action 2d 3 explore guaranteed universal basic income options so for many of
00:03:24.540us the moment we hear us the moment we hear something like that we are not comfortable
00:03:29.540with that topic for the simple fact that that has a slant toward socialism type goals and this was something back
00:03:43.540in 2019 pardon me and I would say even earlier that the city of Calgary was exploring so that would have been under
00:03:52.540been under Nancy a no surprise there being that he is leading the NDP of our province right now and
00:04:00.540interestingly though this is the city of Calgary that is putting out such topics to be considered definitely
00:04:11.540not something that I would not believe any people within Calgary would be thinking that that is something that city councillors
00:04:21.540should be considering and in addition in the appendix of that same document which you can find
00:04:31.540online really easily just going to do a search you can do it on the city of Calgary's website or
00:04:37.540oftentimes just from your search engine that you use they also had here the united nations sustainable
00:04:45.540development goals alignment so I'll bring that up for you I took a screenshot of that page as well page 135
00:04:53.540from that document and yeah there it is laid out very clearly for everyone just how not just that resilience document
00:05:07.540but all of these areas and trust me there are many many rabbit holes to go down but how all of these documents align
00:05:17.540with the UN's social development goals so it is there in plain sight maybe not easily found but so there's one
00:05:29.540example for you of how the city of Calgary is leaning into the united nations and their their global plans
00:05:41.540now moving on so that's just a little bit of background for you there this sort of way of planning the city was
00:05:51.540being used long long before the 2050 climate plan that they came up with or shared with the city once the
00:06:03.540declaration was made so here is the title page this is their Calgary climate strategy pathways to 2050 and so I put in here
00:06:19.540the timing on this because this came out in June of 22 well isn't that pretty quick work being that it was in
00:06:29.540November of 2021 that the climate emergency was declared by Mayor Gondek so this was some pretty quick work I would
00:06:41.540venture to say that it was well underway long before the declaration was made and we'll look a little bit more
00:06:47.540in depth at that so moving on before we jump into the document itself in more depth as I was doing my research there were some areas that popped up to me and I thought this is what I need to lead with here and you'll see why
00:07:15.540on page 40 pardon me page 10 of the document this is a screen grab here the city is telling us right here
00:07:27.540well number one actually as a global citizens we have a responsibility to decarbonize in alignment with
00:07:35.540the global carbon budget do we we have a responsibility I don't believe that I signed up to be a global citizen
00:07:43.540and actually I didn't I was not even involved in the election of the mayor I came to the city after that
00:07:51.540but you can be certain that I would not have been voting to be a global citizen and I'm pretty sure
00:07:57.540majority of Calgarians were not voting for that either but here it's saying that reporting that the city has been reporting
00:08:07.540it's carbon for quite some time it's been since 2014 and actually I did find in my research that it was actually back to 2012
00:08:19.540so I want us to take a peek at that and so we're going to go in to this document out of this document check out a website come back check out some documents come back
00:08:29.540so we'll be in and out and also take a look here as I was doing research at the time this was for presentation I was making in regard to the city's bylaws
00:08:45.540they were changing for their zoning here in the city and so I started looking into this document a little more in depth
00:08:53.540which I'll also explain but so I was highlighting many things as I went through and elected officials
00:09:01.540so it is the role of Calgary's elected officials to provide administration with strategic direction led by example
00:09:09.540and to advocate for climate action with international organizations that's interesting governments regional partners educational institutions and citizens
00:09:21.540Council can also play a role in encouraging investment opportunities for business and fostering Calgary's international reputation as an energy leader
00:09:31.540well I would definitely agree that the city of Calgary should be fostering Calgary as an international energy leader
00:09:41.540but that's certainly not what the city of Calgary is talking about here which we'll get into pretty quickly
00:09:47.540and also very interesting it's the role of Calgary's elected officials to provide administration very interesting
00:09:56.540I do wonder at times if it's not the administration who is leading the elected officials
00:10:02.540anybody familiar with the words you know deep state that would be part of it as well
00:10:08.540so we're going to go and just check this out and as well fingers crossed that the internet works well for us
00:10:15.540so we're going to go and check out this website here so I'm just going to pull it up right now for us
00:10:23.540I hope it loads there we go I think that's coming in clear so yes this is the the area that I went and found on the website when I was you know researching
00:10:45.540and then I thought oh well let's check out this where they are you know disclosing our carbon so I went and checked it out
00:10:56.540so interestingly anybody who has been researching these type things this right here is probably a big aha moment for you
00:11:09.540so anytime we see ICLEI that sets off alarm bells for most people if you're not sure ICLEI stands for the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives
00:11:22.540and I spoke briefly about ICLEI in video one and really ICLEI's role in a nutshell is to localize the United Nations 17 sustainable programs
00:11:38.540sustainable development goals that is their job to start bringing it to the local area so that should set off alarm bells right away for you
00:11:49.540so what we can do is we can go into their databases and I actually I wonder if I can go home here and see
00:12:00.540um so I wanted to start you here and sorry I did not have this page up to begin with but there it is shows up um because I really wanted you to see this
00:12:12.540uh as I clicked through and I found different things so ICLEI is talking all about that here and the great thing about video is you can um rate stop
00:12:22.540fast forward screen grab whatever you need to and so here it's talking about it um you know this is being the world's leading climate reporting platform etc etc
00:12:33.540here also cities can measure their progress on UN backed climate campaigns uh and report to key climate initiatives
00:12:41.540so again this is where UN shows up again and um this is where we'll go to the open data portal to check check out this information that I want to show you
00:12:52.540so I won't read it all for you you can go check it out uh for yourself or just you know pause and read what you see here
00:13:00.540what you see here but again uh race to zero race to resilience uh that's part of the uh resilient cities network
00:13:09.540here's ICLEI uh C40 which we're not a part of um take note of WWF World Wildlife Fund One Planet City Challenge
00:13:21.540take note of that uh you can actually go check that out for yourself and there wasn't a lot there when I did
00:13:27.540but just take note it's going to come up again um and here drive impact far beyond your city through your data
00:13:37.540your data is utilized by entities such as the United Nations um the International Panel on Climate Change
00:13:46.540IPCC that should be familiar to many of you um the World Health Organization and the World Bank
00:13:54.540to inform climate policy and initiatives that help build a sustainable planet and economy
00:14:00.540so reporting being that the city of Calgary um has signed up to report they have declared a climate emergency
00:14:09.540right in the video one um it was important to declare a climate emergency and we wonder why
00:14:18.540why why are they doing this why are they so bent on you know reducing carbon well this is why because
00:14:26.540they've joined the big boys club and they need to show to the world that they are reducing their carbon
00:14:34.540footprint and they are using this uh just one of these I must say areas uh to report on the city of
00:14:43.540Calgary's um data and there's so much wrong with that um I know I'm speaking to um people who um most likely
00:14:55.540already believe that but um we don't report to United Nations we we shouldn't we should not be reporting to the
00:15:03.540United Nations um our local governments are accountable to us we the people not the United Nations
00:15:12.540but let's just go and check it out uh we'll keep our fingers crossed again um that um everything works
00:15:19.540for us here so we're gonna go to the open data portal okay so sorry this is where I started you originally
00:15:25.540so I brought you back here so search data sets so there's many many areas you could go and search
00:15:33.540and you could spend as the saying goes all day going down the rabbit holes and I did a few of these
00:15:41.540so I'm gonna take you to the one that I think really shows kind of what I'm looking to help prove
00:15:49.540so we know that um the city you know this is their goal 1.5 degrees celsius not to go um any higher than
00:15:57.380that you know we don't want to warm up more than that so let's just click on this area here
00:16:05.060and let's see there we go things are a little bit slow here I have lots open and lots on the go
00:16:14.580so please bear with me and then from here I am going to hit on the city's emissions reduction targets
00:16:25.220and I'm not going to go by sector I just want to do this one here but but by all means you can go in
00:16:31.940and take a look um yeah you can explore a lot so there's much to see here but but I want to show you
00:16:45.220and I just did this um let's see if I can get it to all work properly for us oops I'll try that again
00:16:55.940Calgary okay see if I can get it to apply okay go okay so there we go it worked so actually
00:17:09.060everything along the right side here is also found along the bottom so I'm going to go down there
00:17:16.900and some of you who are really knowledgeable in this area will probably appreciate this more than
00:17:25.140other people do but it's just the fact that and what I mean by that is you know the amount of missions
00:17:31.780that they're putting in here they you know comparing you know one year to another year type thing
00:17:37.700just the fact that our government officials are sharing our data and our information with a global
00:17:47.860entity um that doesn't sit well with myself and I'll just run through this rather quickly just to
00:17:55.540show you how you can go and take a look at at different things here so um the year Calgary actually
00:18:03.780has a number organization number so if you hover up above it tells you um you know sort of what this
00:18:09.220column stands for um yes country region are is this a c40 city and here it is saying no and that is the
00:18:22.020information that we did show in video one two that it's not a c40 city um but c40 backs a lot of um
00:18:33.780and actually that's one thing if i can remember i'm when i go out i'm going to show you um about c40
00:18:41.540um it's public access the number of times it's reported 10 times and again you can just go through
00:18:48.980um uh this on your own um emissions covered by the target um our carbon credits currently used or plan to
00:18:59.860be used to be used to achieve this target no this target will not use carbon credits so interesting
00:19:05.300um so all types of things uh your target was established 21 how many emissions uh were covered
00:19:14.820in that year so again not sure exactly what it's all meaning like it was that how many emissions
00:19:22.900we were able to reduce um was that our total emissions that year not sure um base years and on
00:19:33.700and on and on um so here net emissions in target year uh okay here we go net emissions in the target year
00:19:41.780and yeah on and on you can go so if you remember is this considered uh science-based target yes it's
00:19:53.060saying remember that that world wildlife fund here's where it pops up if target is considered to be
00:20:00.020science-based specifically the methodology it aligns to well the world wildlife funds one planet city
00:20:07.700challenge what it aligns to and again more inventory um and there are um some stipulations that are put in place
00:20:20.100um put okay so this aligns with the nationally determined so federally and then the city location
00:20:30.900and i wanted to put here oh yes so please explain so there's some explanations here
00:20:36.260you can go ahead and read essentially it's saying yes you know we're trying to stop our emissions
00:20:43.540reduce them so we don't go above 1.5 etc etc um and i think here we're talking about the climate emergency
00:20:52.820um but again saying that a lot of their emissions are dependent upon um
00:20:58.500um areas that are outside of their jurisdiction um it's a strategic priority sorry uh for the city uh
00:21:09.860the city council is committed to accelerating the timelines um etc etc um and maybe it would have been here
00:21:19.140there yes okay so there you go so you can go and spend some time in there and just see what um
00:21:30.100um the city has been up to in regard to um your hard-earned dollars so i'm gonna see if i can just go back
00:21:40.740um so maybe it's not gonna let me go one one more i wanted to show you
00:21:49.300let's see how uh how this aligns it won't let me go back one more let's see um
00:21:59.380um nope let's see let's go home let's see if it will
00:22:09.220yeah i'm gonna take us here okay i want to go back
00:22:12.100back so those are the databases so here um let's see sorry i know i'm spending a bit of time i wanted
00:22:21.620to do this let's see these are the cities why report okay so underneath here this is what i wanted
00:22:28.100to show you quick so again to see where i'm at on the address bar let's show us here ah there we go
00:22:35.860thank you so as we scroll down so who are the sponsors who is in partnership with this reporting
00:22:43.300project so there we go the icly global covenant of mayors which we know that mayor gondek is a part of
00:22:50.980c40 cities granted we are not listed as a c40 city in calgary but c40 sponsors many of these initiatives
00:23:00.100and we know how nefarious c40 plans are so there you go race to resilience so this where resilient
00:23:07.940cities networks comes into play race to zero is a part of that so i wanted to point that out to you too
00:23:15.220and again just uh looking at the address bar so that took a little bit of time but i think it was really
00:23:21.540important and necessary to share with you what is going on with the city's reporting so i'm going
00:23:30.020to minimize that and that there we go so going back to um the powerpoint here so we went we've
00:23:39.300checked out what our city is up to for disclosing to the united nations uh entities what's going on
00:23:46.660there so i'm going to bring up for you here the table of contents so this is the table of contents for
00:23:57.780this calgary climate strategy and again this is just a screen grab so i don't have to go out as much
00:24:05.700from the powerpoint and so um a couple of things here there's those words mitigation adaptation
00:24:14.980you may remember from um video one that that came up quite often and that a part of declaring an
00:24:23.540emergency was the plan a plan was needed so voila here is the city of calgary's plan and we'll be
00:24:32.900talking a little bit more about these mitigation themes here specifically uh the zero carbon
00:24:38.820neighborhoods uh share why i want to talk to you just a little bit about adaptation and if you are
00:24:45.140wondering and forget the actual climate emergency declaration so the actual um official form uh paper
00:24:55.540form that the city put out that is actually this is where i found it so it was on page 81 of the 2050 climate
00:25:03.620document so as you can see it's uh it's a pretty big document so i was just going to break it down for
00:25:12.980you so i'm not running this powerpoint has how i would absolutely love to because i have some um areas
00:25:22.580that just magically appear with the click of the button but i'm not running it as such so some of the
00:25:28.340things i'm just boom pop up to you right away but one of the things that i wanted to do uh and i did in
00:25:36.020my research within any document a pdf document you can do a search for key terms phrases and
00:25:48.260many of us did believe that the city was running as a smart city like that was their their aim their goal
00:25:56.260and i do not um necessarily disagree with that but we need the right terminology to be able to address
00:26:07.060these areas of concerns for us and so they're not running on that platform as you can see with the
00:26:16.500keywords and phrases that i searched up smart cities didn't even come up resilient city did yes
00:26:24.980but what comes up more these ones over here so basically anything related to climate going net zero
00:26:32.980you know going green right emissions reduction retrofitting buildings and equity is a huge one
00:26:43.220and anybody who's unsure equity does not mean equality that may be for another video but equity comes up
00:26:53.380many times and infrastructure comes up many times so this is something you might want to just tuck in your
00:26:59.540back pocket so with that um i will throw it out there that we believe the city of calgary's
00:27:09.700climate plan is the trojan horse if you understand your greek mythology
00:27:17.300for implementing the un 17 sustainable development goals also known as sdgs
00:27:23.140uh sometimes it's known as the 2030 agenda and we call it localizing the sdg so they're taking this
00:27:31.060global um entity this global body and what it desires it our local governments are implementing them
00:27:43.460right here within our city and within our regions which i'll also hopefully be able to
00:27:48.420to show and honestly smart city technology is well underway and i hope to hit that at the very
00:27:55.140end of our video here okay um goals and targets let's see so yes so within the document as well
00:28:06.340and that was on page four of the document um the city is committed to addressing calgary's
00:28:12.340fair share of global emissions oh really um global emissions we'll just talk about that in the next
00:28:20.580slide and here the mitigation plan comes into play again adaptation plan comes into play um of concern
00:28:30.420our collective health interesting um how we have to worry about our health as a collective
00:28:38.260um that's actually not how our constitution works uh our constitution folks on the focuses on the
00:28:46.500individual and the individual rights and then their um their goals and interesting how we are
00:28:55.780supposed to you know address our fair share of global emissions well interesting if you take a look
00:29:02.900look at our fair share of emissions uh in a very uh recent um article actually this one i grabbed from the epoch
00:29:12.660times it was a screen grab that i did uh on an interview they had there um that canada's part of global emissions is
00:29:21.460approximately 1.5 percent of global emissions um so we put out the tiniest tiniest tiniest fraction
00:29:31.940and um yeah many people often say if we canada would disappear it wouldn't even do um a dent in
00:29:42.020the reduction of the global emissions because we've got some big players in the world that they are the
00:29:48.420ones right who um are putting out the largest um percentage of emissions and laughing all the way to the bank
00:29:56.820we might say this concludes part two in our series entitled eye on calgary please watch for part three
00:30:09.620where we will dive in to the city of calgary's climate plan document thank you for your time
00:30:17.940and attention to this topic god bless you and god bless canada