Activist optimistic about Regina's 'ambitious' framework for net-zero emissions by 2050

A framework that is supposed to help Regina reach net-zero emissions by 2050 is being met by optimism from at least one environmental group in Saskatchewan's capital. 

The City of Regina's proposed Energy and Sustainability Framework was released this week. 

On Wednesday, Regina Energy Transition, a group that calls for the city to address climate change, called the program ambitious but attainable. 

"That's what we need to do. We're behind the ball," said Yvette Crane, a member of Regina Energy Transition. "Other cities have been on this already, so we need to go." 

Crane said she was overjoyed by the clear and precise language used in the document, which describes inaction on global warming and a changing climate as having "catastrophic" consequences. 

"We get discouraged when people dance around the issue or deny climate change," Crane said. 

The Energy and Sustainability Framework was first proposed in 2018, when city council voted unanimously for Regina to address climate change and become a 100 per cent renewable energy community by 2050.   

Four years later the framework is finally ready.

It lays out how the entire city will reach net-zero and ensure that all electricity, heating, cooling and transportation will be powered by renewable energy or offset by reduced greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere. 

Other cities including Halifax, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Guelph and Charlottetown have developed similar plans. 

Regina's document is headlined by seven so-called "big moves" that the city needs to take: 

There's little doubt that the implementing the framework will take work, Crane said, but it must be done. It's a sentiment echoed by the document itself. 

"Action must now occur at a scale and pace that will present both challenges and opportunities for Regina," the executive summary of the framework reads. 

The plan was developed by Sustainability Solutions Group, which has completed more than 80 climate change plans in partnership with whatIf? Technologies.