Edmonton has its 1st carbon budget. It's expecting to blow it

Edmonton released its first carbon budget on Thursday, a measure of its efforts to combat climate change.

The city officially declared a climate emergency in 2019. It has pledged to do its fair share as part of a global movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to 1.5 C.

Edmonton has greenhouse emissions reduction targets (compared to a 2005 baseline) of 35 per cent by 2025, 50 per cent by 2030, and to be emissions neutral by 2050. For the corporate city, it aims to be carbon neutral by 2040.

The 2023-26 Carbon Budget forecasts that without a major shake-up, Edmonton will miss those targets.

Climate resiliency came to the forefront during the last municipal administration but Mayor Amarjeet Sohi has taken up the torch. This week he'll be attending the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

"While the current forecast shows that based on our current level of actions and investments we will likely not meet our targets, it doesn't mean that this is a foregone conclusion," he said in a statement emailed Friday.

"I am optimistic that this can change. There are transformational and very disruptive technologies that will help accelerate our energy transition that are already here and some that we don't know about."

Just like a financial budget, a carbon budget indicates how much the city can spend over a time period — only instead of money, it's greenhouse gas emissions.

Edmonton has allocated 176 million tonnes of emissions for the community as a whole by 2050. The corporate city — which makes up two per cent of the total community — is set at 2.25 million tonnes.

Edmonton is one of the first municipalities in Canada to incorporate a carbon budget into its budgetary cycle. As such, it's still learning how exactly to do that — the nearly 100-page carbon budget includes a bevy of assumptions and qualifications.

The document evaluates around 400 items from the capital, operating and utility budgets for their emission impacts. About 270 were assessed to have direct greenhouse gas impacts, but only 60 provide a quantifiable number.

Two composite estimates are of particular note. The transit capital composite is expected to reduce emissions of 23,700 tonnes by 2026 while the road capital composite — the Terwillegar Drive Expressway, Yellowhead Trail Freeway, and 50 St. CP Rail grade separation — will add 12,800.

The budget said the city has already taken steps to limit emissions through various actions, including the installation of solar panels on city facilities and a long-term renewable electricity contract set to go into effect in 2024 — expected to reduce emissions by 226,000 over 2023-26.

For the 2023-26 cycle, Edmonton as a whole has a target of 49.1 million tonnes of emissions. Based on the proposed budget, it will miss that by about 4 million tonnes.