It is unclear what policies the city will introduce to accelerate the timeline. Pictured: Hamilton City Hall. Photo Credit: City of Hamilton/X.
Amid controversial Council policies, including the recently introduced Green Building Standards, the City of Hamilton has announced that they are now looking to accelerate their goal of achieving “net zero emissions” by 2050.
The announcement was made by the city in a public news release as part of an annual update from the city’s Office of Climate Change Initiatives.
It is unclear what policies the city will introduce in order to accelerate the timeline.
It is also unclear what the city’s new target will be in reaching “net zero emissions,” although achieving the goal at any point before 2050 can technically be considered an acceleration of the target.
The news release touts that one of the city’s “key accomplishments” in 2024 was “Council’s endorsement of Hamilton’s first Green Building Standards.”
Those standards, which are a set of both “voluntary and mandatory measures for new development,” have been denounced by the construction industry.
Toronto’s Green Standards are reportedly set to be challenged in court and industry leaders say that the measures will add unnecessary costs to housing in the midst of a housing crisis.
Richard Lyall, the President of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, which represents most of the residential builders in the province, has said that their organization is against “undue energy conservation measures” like Green Building Standards.
“As codes and standards are updated, we should not be adding more costs to housing without due consideration as to whether they really make sense,” he said.
Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath supports those Green Building Standards and the Office of Climate Change Initiative’s goal to accelerate the city’s “net zero emissions” target.
“Hamiltonians deserve a cleaner, greener and more livable city,” said Horwath.
“Through the City’s Climate Action Strategy, we are making steady progress transitioning toward a net zero community,” she continued.
Controversial climate activist-turned-city employee Lynda Lukasik is also quoted in the media release.
Lukasik, who previously took the city to court and strongly opposed Hamilton’s urban boundary expansion, was hired by the city in December 2022 as the Director of Climate Change Initiatives less than two months after her failed Councillor campaign in the city’s Ward 5 (Hamilton East-Stoney Creek).
Matt Francis won the ward with 4,239 votes (43.61 per cent), while Lukasik received only 1,598 votes (16.44 per cent).
Lukasik says, “Our work is just beginning.”
“As we move forward, we are stepping up our data collection and monitoring efforts so we can advance and, wherever possible, accelerate this critical work,” continued Lukasik.
The Director of Climate Change Initiatives position has an estimated annual cost of $215,000 (includes salary and non-salary costs).
Although the exact plan to accelerate the city’s net-zero target has not been revealed, the press release notes that the city constructed over 10km of new bike lanes in 2023 and had the goal of adding over 20km of “active transportation infrastructure in 2024.”
At least one City Councillor has also indicated a desire to make the city’s Green Building Standards more strict.
Councillor Cameron Kroetsch (Ward 2 – Downtown Hamilton), told Canada’s National Observer, a left-wing climate change publication, that Hamilton’s Green Building Standards are “designed to be scalable so that we can add more mandatory requirements for green development over time.”
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
