The Town of Banff will move ahead with developing a strategy to work towards a goal of 100 per cent renewable energy community-wide by 2050.
Banff politicians officially gave the nod to spend $40,000 to develop the strategy when they signed off on a $36.3 million operating budget for 2016-18 last Thursday (Dec. 17). The funds for this, however, will come from Banff’s environmental reserve.
Officials say now is an opportune time to look into this for Banff, especially given that federal and provincial governments have pledged to take much greater action on tackling climate change and commit to clean, renewable energy.
Chad Townsend, the Town of Banff’s environmental coordinator, said now that the funding has officially been approved, the first step would involve putting together a request for proposals (RFP) to hire a firm to begin the work.
“We want to engage a firm and then have a workshop with council,” said Townsend. “We need to work through with council on what is renewable energy and what are the green energies they like and then start to formulate a strategy.”
At present, about 90 per cent of Alberta’s electricity is generated using non-renewable fossil fuels, primarily from coal. In the Bow Valley, of course, hydro power goes into the provincial grid from TransAlta’s Cascade hydro plant in Banff and from the Rundle plant in Canmore.
Energy consumption, including heat and transportation, is Banff’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
A report prepared for the Town of Banff by Urban Systems provided a preliminary assessment of various renewable energy technologies.
The assessment of options for Banff explored included solar photovoltaic, wind power, hydropower, geothermal, geo-exchange, biomass heating and the use of waste for power.
Councillor Stavros Karlos said now is the ideal time to have this strategy in place and ready to go.
“Our federal and provincial counterparts are intending spending money in this area,” he said.
Coun. Chip Olver agreed, noting the federal government and Alberta government are taking a strong stance on tackling climate change.
“I think we are just ahead of the curve on this in terms of what municipalities are going to be doing,” she said.
“I think this strategically puts us in what I anticipate to be a strong position because of the changes we’re going to be seeing coming from both the provincial and federal governments,” she added.
“They’re both targetting funding towards this area and I think we need to be prepared. I think we’re so clever to be doing this right now and it would really be to our detriment not to do this.”
The consensus in the scientific community is that climate change is one of the greatest threats of our time. From increased incidences of droughts, to coastal flooding, to the expanding melt of sea ice in the Arctic, the widespread effects of climate change are huge.
As part of the United Nations climate change talks in Paris Nov. 30-Dec. 11, nearly 200 nations adopted the first global pact to fight climate change, calling on the world to collectively cut and then eliminate greenhouse gas pollution.
Traditionally, such pacts as the Paris agreement have required developed economies like Canada to take action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but they have exempted developing countries like China and India from such obligations.
No sanctions, however, will be imposed on countries that don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Canadian government officials have said they would support a long-term goal of limiting rising average temperatures to within 1.5 C of pre-industrial levels, although 2 C remains the official target.
A half-degree change in the target may not seem like much, but according to scientists, it means the world’s average emissions would have to decline more sharply, and over less amount of time.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised the government will meet with the provinces and territories to develop emissions plans in the next 90 days now the climate talks in Paris have concluded.
Alberta’s NDP government has also announced plans to tackle climate change, including a plan for a province-wide carbon tax, the phasing out of coal-fired power generation in the province by 2030, and a greenhouse gas emissions cap at 100 megatonnes.
The Town Banff has already explored and initiated a number of alternative energy opportunities, including solar photovoltaic system installations on Wolf Street Washroom, Town Hall and Banff Community High School.
The municipality also has an incentive program in place for residents and business to install solar panels.
