Hamilton City Council recently voted unanimously to provide $100,000 for “an in-depth exploration of the potential to accelerate Hamilton’s net-zero by 2050 target” to a 2040 target.
Additionally, the city’s Office of Climate Change Initiatives, which was established by City Council in 2022, was directed to update Hamilton’s Climate Action Strategy “to ensure Hamilton is responding to the most recent scientific projections to help reduce climate impacts and costs.”
The Director of the Office of Climate Change Initiatives is environmental activist Lynda Lukasik, who unsuccessfully ran for Hamilton City Council in 2022.
The office also includes two senior project managers and two other project managers.
Three of its five employees are on Ontario’s Sunshine List.
The City of Hamilton currently has a goal to “reduce absolute emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and to become a net-zero city by 2050.” All reductions are compared to 2005 levels.
A staff report says that “both of those goals are ambitious and will require all city departments to implement actionable plans and policies to actively reduce energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Nevertheless, staff add that acceleration of those goals “is feasible and advisable given the growing scientific imperative for rapid climate action.”
They continue, “Key opportunities exist to realize acceleration through business and industry decarbonization, and through EV uptake and modal shifts to public transit and active transportation.”
Staff say that a number of initiatives have already been undertaken to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city, such as expanding bike lane infrastructure and improving bus service.
According to staff, transit usage has rebounded from the pandemic, with HSR buses carrying 21.84 million riders in 2024 – a 2.1 per cent increase compared to 2019.
However, according to Statistics Canada estimates, the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area is believed to have increased in population by 7.6 per cent between 2019 and 2024, making the ridership increase less significant.
Even so, a breakdown of community-wide greenhouse gas emissions in Hamilton indicates that whether or not the city reaches its targets will heavily depend on industry.
A table of data from 2023 indicates that 40 per cent of community-wide greenhouse gas emissions were from the steel industry, 31 per cent were from other industries in the city, 16 per cent from transportation, seven per cent from residences, and 6 per cent from commercial buildings.
The city’s controversial proposed Green Building Standards are listed as one way that emissions can be reduced.
Housing industry organizations have warned that the standards could increase building costs and exacerbate the housing crisis.
Nevertheless, the policy looked set for approval by Council before being referred back to staff for further investigation into the short-term costs and long-term benefits. A report back is expected later this year.
Staff say that “there will be necessary up-front investments” in reducing emissions.
The city already procured a consultant report with a preliminary analysis of whether or not it is feasible to achieve “net-zero” by 2040 in Hamilton.
The report was completed by Sustainability Solutions Group, which also authored the city’s “Re-Charge Hamilton – Our Community Energy and Emissions Plan” document.
The consultant report says that to achieve net-zero by 2040, the city must accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, accelerate efforts to shift people away from using vehicles, support the decarbonization of steel, and secure access to “100 per cent green electricity for industry, buildings, and transportation by 2030-2035.”
The report further recommends all the actions that are in the “Re-Charge Hamilton” document, including retrofitting 100 per cent of commercial buildings, retrofitting 100 per cent of existing homes, ensuring that only 20 per cent of new dwellings are single-family detached homes by 2050, ensuring 100 per cent of vehicles are electric by 2040, and by ensuring that 50 per cent of short trips in urban areas take place through walking or cycling.
It is unclear how the city is supposed to accomplish all of those tasks.
Sustainability Solutions Group also writes that two “key financial risk areas” of reducing emissions are the “removal of the consumer carbon price – which decreases the relative benefit of zero-emissions technologies – and the economic and political disruption from the United States.”
Currently, Canada has no consumer carbon tax, as it was repealed earlier this year, and the trade war with the United States continues.
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.
