[All] Update re: Climate Emergency Meeting with Mayor Vrbanovic

[Lanteigne]

Hi folks
A collaboration of groups in the region has been preparing a motion to declare a state of climate emergency in Kitchener. So far responses from staff have been very supportive and encouraging. Here is a great summery from Caterina Lindman. She has done a super job with the details. Great to see the progress made. 
Lulu 😃
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   ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: "Caterina Lindman" <caterina.lindman at gmail.com> To: "Waterloo Region Climate Emergency Task Force" <climateemergency at kwpeace.ca> Cc:  Sent: Fri, Jun 14, 2019 at 8:21 PM Subject: [ClimateEmergency] Climate Emergency Meeting with Mayor Vrbanovic  This afternoon, Kai and I met with Mayor Vrbanovic and Claire Bennett,
KItchener's first Sustainability Officer
<https://www.kitchener.ca/Modules/News/index.aspx?newsId=b2f4c014-7f82-479b-9568-d5e89191bc55>.
The meeting went well.  Here's a few notes that I took at today's meeting.

Meeting Date:  June 14, 2019.  Time of meeting 3:30 to approximately 4:30.

The mayor is committed to climate action.  He announced a climate action
plan in support of the Corporation of the City of Kitchener's target of 80%
reductions in GHG emssions by 2050.  He is also concerned with social
justice, and has created a taskforce on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
He is active in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and also in
the Presidency
of United Cities and Local Governments, with the office of Treasurer.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Cities_and_Local_Governments#Presidency>.
He attended COP 21 in Paris, and is a big supporter of the Sustainable
Development Goals.  He said that the Federal government has committed to
giving the City of Kitchener $50 M in funds, that will be added to the $70
M that the City is putting in, to create a more resilient city with respect
to floods and storm water.  Mayor Berry said that the Green Municipal Fund
got $1 B in funding from the federal government, and that it would get
allocated about 1/3rd each to affordable housing, partnership programs with
homeowners, and municipal building retrofits.

Berry said that with respect to the risks posed by climate change, that
"more and more people are getting it."

Claire asked us if we had talked to Climate Action Waterloo, and Kai was
able to say yes, that he is right next to them when he is working on his
PhD.

I asked Claire whether whole-food plant-based diets were going to be
promoted as part of the climate action plan.  They won't really reduce
direct emissions (think transportation, heating and businesses), but they
are so important for a variety of reasons (health, biodiversity, freeing up
land for carbon sinks and natural habitat, less water use, less
eutorphication and less acid rain).  She said the plan was directed at
direct emissions, but that Guelph is working on their food systems, and won
a Smart City Award.

We were asked which councillors we had talked to, so we told them (Chapman,
and three others).  The mayor is supportive of the climate emergency
declaration.  He would rather not try to get this through before the end of
June, but rather, take time over the Summer to talk to the other mayors,
and have the Region and the municipalities within Waterloo Region declare
climate emergencies in September.  This would show unity, and would garner
good press for a week or two, while these motions were being debated and
passed.

Both Claire and Berry were interested in getting a copy of the handout,
which we then provided.

P.S.  Attached is a copy of the Climate Emergency Brief.  It contains a
correction from the previous one.  The earlier version said:  "The
projections they present show that we will receive more intense
temperatures and extreme weather, with 50-year events almost halving in
frequency under relatively conservative scenarios."

The word "halving" has been corrected to read "doubling."
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