It’s not dead yet, but without continued funding the federal One Tonne Challenge is officially on hiatus until further notice.
The One Tonne Challenge is a national program to encourage individual Canadians to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (mostly carbon dioxide) by just 20 per cent, or by an average of one tonne per person. In return, by following the OTC program Canadians would be able to reduce their own energy costs.
Since May of 2005 the Resort Municipality of Whistler and federal government have partnered to provide the community with a part-time OTC coordinator. The main focus of the coordinator was to sign-up residents and visitors to the resort to take the One Tonne Challenge, but Marc Zurbuchen has also been involved in a variety of other initiatives, including the recent idle-free campaign, the Commuter Challenge, a local electronic waste collection day, and a discount program for programmable thermostats, to name just a few.
According to Zurbuchen, the One Tonne Challenge program was a success in Whistler. Exact numbers won’t be available until next week, but overall response has been strong.
"In review of what we’ve done it looks like the amount of people we’ve reached and the awareness we created… about climate change through events was successful," he said.
"We had great success with events like Clean Air Day, where Whistler was the national champion, the commuter challenge, and the E-Waste roundup day was overwhelming successful. We ran an energy saving workshop in June that was a success, the idle-free campaign was great… and the media coverage was great, it definitely helped a lot."
According to Zurbuchen, Whistler accounted for eight per cent of all British Columbians who signed up for the One Tonne Challenge, which is disproportionately high considering the relative size of the population.
"By spreading the word and increasing the participation in events, we hopefully reached a lot of people, and had the chance to make people think more about the impact of greenhouse gas emissions."
Blair Wilson, the Liberal Member of Parliament for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky and associate critic for finance, was concerned when he heard that the Conservatives had halted funding for national climate change initiatives, given their wide public support.
"I’ve been trying to figure out why, what are their reasons for being vague on a plan of action on climate change, One Tonne Challenge, and 100 other projects under consideration," he said.
"Either they still don’t get the science of climate change, or two, don’t have a plan to address climate change, or three, they don’t want to tell us what their plan is. Personally I think it’s a little of all three."
Wilson is also concerned that the upcoming budget will call for lowering the GST and capital gains tax, forcing the federal government to cancel social and environmental programs like the One Tonne Challenge.
"In the last budget we set aside $4 billion to address climate change, and now (government) is letting programs lapse to undermine our commitment to address climate change," said Wilson.
"One Tonne Challenge is especially important because it’s a grass roots movement. Some Conservatives in the campaign said they supported it.
"It’s time for this government to make its stance on Kyoto clear. Some (MPs) are saying we are not going to pull out of it, while others say we can’t live up to our commitments."
Wilson said the Liberals and other opposition parties are waiting to see the budget, which will be announced next month, to see where the environment fits into the big picture. "We’ll see how much they left out," he said.
Wilson said the Liberal party is committed to fight for its principles, which includes battling climate change and living up to Kyoto obligations.
The One Tonne Challenge program fit into a larger Kyoto strategy, whereby Canada has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas output by six per cent below 1990 levels. The Liberal government ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2002.
The One Tonne Challenge program hasn’t officially been scrapped, but the Tories halted all funding as of March 31 and announced plans to review the program, as well as approximately 100 different climate change programs championed by the outgoing Grits.
Harper has been critical of Kyoto in the past, and has voiced concern that Canada would fail to meet targets and could be susceptible to internationally levied fines. Since 1990, total greenhouse gas output in Canada has increased 24 per cent, which means the country will have to reduce output by 30 per cent to be in compliance.
In the last federal election Harper has also said that he would prefer to talk to the provinces about climate change to create a made-in-Canada solution, which is similar to the U.S. approach. The U.S. is one of a handful of countries not to ratify Kyoto, along with growing industrial powers India and China, preferring to encourage innovation in the private sector than commit to any firm reduction targets.
Whistler One-Tonne Challenge Numbers:
• The Whistler One-Tonne Challenge has saved an estimated 1,015 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions;
• 969 registrants and pledges were made by residents within the V0N postal code, accounting for eight per cent of all B.C. registrants;
• The Whistler Way Commuter Challenge had 828 participants, saving an estimated 29 tonnes of greenhouse gases in two weeks;
• The Electronic Waste Round-Up saved approximately 10 tonnes of GHGs in four hours.
