GUELPH POLITICAST #Repeat - Counting Down to (Net) Zero

"Hot enough for ya?" A charming conversation starter in summers past, but here in August 2023 it seems more like a damning curse. Last month was the hottest month on the planet in a few hundred millennia, forest fires rage out of control in several provinces, smog from those fires choke cities in the south, and now there's the threat that the Gulf Stream may be gone by 2025. What can we do on the local level in the wake of all these developments?

That was one of the questions we put to Byan Ho-Yan, the manager of Energy and Climate Change at the City of Guelph, when he appeared on the podcast last fall. Fresh off an election, there was a pause for the new council to consider how they might build on the accomplishments of the previous council, a directive to accelerate the City’s shift to net zero and 100 per cent renewable. Ho-Yan is the man who has to make it happen.

Since December, there has been some progress. Council passed the Guelph Greener Homes program earlier this year offering zero-interest loans to residential property owners in Guelph to help cover the costs of residential energy efficiency upgrades. We just initiated an e-scooter pilot program,and we got federal money for new EV chargers and to cover the cost of HVAC upgrades at the West End Rec Centre. Good news, but we need to do more.

Ultimately, the City of Guelph, as a corporation, is only responsible for three per cent of the local carbon footprint, which means it's up to the rest of us to get the other 97 per cent of the way to zero, and that's where we start with Ho-Yan. He will about the limits of what the City can do to affect our climate change goals, and the ways that they can rally the community. Plus, he will talk about the progress made so far, and the one thing he wishes everyone knew about the fight against climate change.

So let’s talking about fighting climate change at the city level (again) on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

You can see the City of Guelph's 2022 Sustainability Report here, and to learn more about how to apply to the Guelph Greener Homes program, you can click here. Programming note: Next week's pod will be the midyear council recap, and then there will be another repeat on August 23 before getting back to our regularly scheduled programming on August 30.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, TuneIn and Spotify .

Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.