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Written by Laura Schnurr (Tamarack Institute) & Hope Moon (Climate Reality Project Canada)
In fall 2023, five organizations working on accelerating community-level climate action (Tamarack Institute, Climate Caucus, Climate Reality Project Canada, Clean Air Partnership and David Suzuki Foundation) partnered to launch an eight-part webinar series exploring ways in which the twin crises of affordability and climate change can be tackled in tandem. We made the case for why integrated solutions are necessary and pointed to examples of where they are working in this blog post kicking off the series.
Over the past nine months, we dove into how climate and affordability play out in different areas. Here’s a recap of the sessions:
To access all the slides, resources, speakers, and recordings from the webinar series, check out the resources document.
Achieving a meaningful and lasting change requires taking a bottom-up, community-driven approach to tackling environmental challenges. By empowering municipalities and grassroots organizations to lead efforts in renewable energy adoption and nature-based solutions, we can achieve more tailored and effective outcomes. This approach not only aligns with global environmental goals but also ensures that the unique needs and strengths of each community are leveraged, fostering innovation, resilience, and broad public support for a sustainable future. We need to actively be listening to, seeking advice from and working with organizers on the ground, as they understand the equity-based solutions needed within communities across Canada.
– David Suzuki Foundation
There are many opportunities for municipalities to implement multi-solve approaches that help to address these interconnected issues and achieve co-benefits. Throughout this series, we delved into the complex issues of affordability and climate change exploring various strategies communities have used to reduce emissions and costs across Canada. The speakers and examples helped highlight these interconnections in various sectors, and the importance of moving away from siloed thinking. In the transit edition, for example, we learned about initiatives like “Get on the Bus”, where municipalities are investing in free youth transit, and seeing numerous co-benefits such as youth empowerment, reduced costs of school programs, increased transit ridership and decreased air pollution. The webinars reinforced how critical it is to recognize these intersections as municipalities continue to address the climate crisis and pave paths towards more sustainable, resilient and affordable communities.
– Climate Caucus
While this series was underway, other collaborators in the ecosystem were also busy advancing the shared goal of addressing affordability challenges and climate change through integrated solutions. The Affordability Action Council, a group of policy experts and community leaders convened by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, Trottier Foundation, McConnell Foundation, and Destination Zero, is one such example. The Council was formed in summer 2023 to explore the ways in which these issues intersect and develop recommendations for supporting lasting affordability, resilience and emissions reductions.
In February 2024, they released the report Making Ends Meet: A New Approach to Tackling Affordability with a set of recommendations for actions the federal government can take. These cover housing retrofits for low-income households, building affordable housing that supports net-zero and climate resilience goals, creating a Groceries and Essentials Benefit for low-income households, shifting the incentives for zero-emission vehicles and increasing funding for public transit, and ensuring affordable and safe transportation for rural, remote and Indigenous communities.
Meanwhile Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac) and many of its members have also been advocating for governments at all levels to take action to simultaneously tackle the climate and affordability crises.
The Affordability Action Council, CAN-Rac and their members are critical voices in this work and particularly on influencing federal policy. The work that Tamarack and our four partner organizations have been leading is very complementary; focused on supporting communities to take integrated action at the local level now using the tools, technology and other solutions already available, demonstrating their potential and inspiring others to follow suit. These two approaches are essential pieces of the puzzle for shifting the systems that keep these issues in silos.
Tamarack and partners will continue to cover these issues in publications, webinars, events, and community of practice calls. We are also considering what additional topics we might explore for a future joint webinar series. We would love to have your input on this, so feel free to send any ideas to laura@tamarackcommunity.ca.