A 2019 review by researchers in Ontario evaluated the climate change plans from 63 Canadian municipalities. They assessed the climate change plans on 46 indicators (organized into eight groupings) and ranked the plans according to the results.
See the full research paper – Evaluating the quality of municipal climate change plans in Canada (2019).
Climate change plans assessed
The researchers reviewed the climate change plans from 63 municipalities, ranging from Toronto (with a population of 2.6 million) to North Vancouver (population of 48,196). The climate change plans from Alberta municipalities that were evaluated were:
- Calgary (Calgary Climate Change Action Plan Target 50)
- Edmonton (The Way We Green: The City of Edmonton’s Environmental Strategic Plan)
- Red Deer (Climate Change Adaptation Plan – City of Red Deer)
- St. Albert (Local Action Plan for Energy Conservation and Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions)
How the plans were evaluated
There were eight main considerations that the climate change plans were assessed on. Each municipal climate change plan was evaluated using the same indicators and ranked according to their score.
The eight main considerations were:
- Fact base
- Goals
- Implementation
- Inter-organization coordination
- Monitoring and evolution
- Participation
- Policies
- Organization and presentation of the plan
Ranking of Alberta’s climate plans
According to 46 indicators (organized into the eight main considerations), the researchers ranked the climate change plans according to overall quality. The climate change plans from Alberta’s municipalities received the following ranks:
- Calgary – 17
- Edmonton – 41
- Red Deer – 58
- St. Albert – 44
Findings and conclusions
The researched reviewed the evaluations and concluded with three key findings:
- The climate change plans tend to prioritize mitigation over adaptation
- The weaker aspects of climate change plans tend to be implementation, monitoring and evaluation
- Stakeholder engagement is identified as important in climate change plans but there are many weaknesses with the processes for engagement
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