Orillia’s city council has adopted a climate change adaptation strategy, which will guide the city’s efforts in mitigating the effects of climate change in years to come.
The plan brings forward 27 actions for the city to take across 30 identified local climate change "vulnerabilities."
Spread across several themes – people and health, built and natural environment, and energy and economy – some of the actions are as follows:
- Creating an educational campaign on the risks of climate change and how residents can prepare;
- Improving monitoring, data collection, and notifications on climate related extreme events;
- Pursuing low-impact development features and green infrastructure;
- Promoting community planting initiatives to bolster the local tree canopy;
- Support affordable and resilient housing to reduce climate-related displacement.
The plan was created in consultation with numerous community organizations and members of the public, following the city’s successful application to the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Advancing Adaptation: Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Project in 2021.
With the adoption of the plan at Monday’s meeting, Orillia has achieved the third milestone in the ICLEI advancing adaptation project, providing the city with concrete actions to help the community adapt to climate change.
“Municipalities are the closest level of government when it comes to those that are experiencing the impacts of climate change. They also influence approximately 50 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Canada,” said Renee Recoskie, director of facilities, climate change, and operations.
“Taking action on climate change requires both comprehensive mitigation and adaptation efforts and the city would be well positioned to guide decision making from both perspectives with incorporation of this strategy.”
Though the city adopted a climate change action plan last year, Recoskie said that plan focuses primarily on reducing the severity of climate change’s effects, whereas the adaptation strategy focuses on ways to adapt to change and make the community more climate resilient.
Moving forward, any initiatives brought forward through the plan will be considered through the city’s budget process.
With the future impacts of climate change in mind, Coun. David Campbell stressed the importance of implementing adaptation initiatives at budget time.
“There's a lot of great stuff in the report. One thing that really stood out to me was, and I will quote, ‘Investments in resilient infrastructure have a return on investment of $6 in future averted losses for every dollar spent proactively,’” he said. “I think that's an incredibly important thing that we all need to keep in mind come budget time.”
Coun. Jay Fallis asked about initiatives that might “cover both sides of the equation” in both mitigating environmental damage and protecting the environment simultaneously.
“Urban forestry and green spaces are certainly an action that can help on both sides of the equation, and especially from the city's perspective, a focus on water, water and energy conservation is another one that overlaps both,” Recoskie responded.
“Our hope as staff is, if we are successful and moving forward with this direction, we would really rebrand our mitigation work and our adaptation work all under Orillia’s climate future so we can give council a holistic update.”
Coun. Tim Lauer questioned why the language in the strategy was not more “draconian” in nature, noting the use of words like ‘pursue’ and ‘encourage’ in lieu of more prescriptive language.
"At this point in time, staff brought forward a strategy that will guide our future efforts, so any actions that would have a concrete impact and a concrete cost to council will come forward as a separate budget request,” responded Recoskie.
“Especially when it comes to green development standards or anything along those lines, a full business plan, with those costs outlined, will need to come forward to members of council.”
As part of the plan, city staff will provide annual updates to council on its climate resilience actions.
More may be read about the climate change adaptation strategy here.
