Item 8.10 and 8.14 Additional Information May 4, 2020 Council Meeting

Re: Item 8.10 Acceleration of Climate Change Actions in response to the Climate Emergency Declaration – City Wide and Item 8.14 Climate Change Adaptation Plan, Degrees of Change – City Wide

Mayor Dilkens and Councillors,

On behalf of the Citizens Environment Alliance (CEA), I am writing to support Item 8.10, Acceleration of Climate Change Actions in response to the Climate Emergency Declaration – City Wide and Item 8.14, Climate Change Adaptation Plan, Degrees of Change – City Wide. The CEA’s preference was to deliver this statement as a delegation to Council.

Item 8.10 and Item 8.14:

Climate mitigation and adaptation actions must be combined to achieve and maintain environmental sustainability; both items 8.10 and Item 8.14 need to be approved in order to ensure the efficacy of both.

Since the City of Windsor’s declaration of a climate emergency, 2019 has been noted as the second warmest on record. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has calculated that there is a 75% chance that 2020 will be the hottest year on record. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere remains a huge problem. The climate crisis continues unabated.

However, we can use the Covid-19 crisis as a catalyst for more sustainable efforts to help mitigate the ongoing climate crisis. We have plenty of recent evidence that shows delaying or refusing to act during an emergency can have dire consequences. As is shown in both items 8.10, 8.14 and “Climate Change Impacts in Windsor: A Technical Analysis”, the costs of doing nothing are high and not sustainable. The costs of delaying additional mitigation and adaptation actions will also be high.

No doubt dealing with more than one emergency at a time is difficult, but that is what we face with Covid-19 and the climate emergency. Lake St. Clair flood waters will not be deterred now or in the future because we must expend effort on another emergency.