Climate Change Action Strategy

Hi Allison, thank you for the astute observations! It's indeed in these times of crisis that we can see the vulnerabilities and interlinkages between our systems. 

This question was submitted to the June 23rd online Speakers' Panel event.

A: Managing transit fares is regulated by the provincial government and TransLink. Fortunately, they have recognized that providing transit discounts for people with lower incomes and who can’t drive is a well-recognized action that can both address equity and help increase ridership. The Province recently announced that children 12 and under will be able to ride transit for free as of this Fall. The Mayors Council on Regional Transportation has previously supported transit fare discounts, as a measure to be funded by the Province.

This question was submitted to the online public engagement event held on June 23rd. 

A: Thank you for your question, which highlights the relationship between walkability, pedestrian safety and traffic speeds. The City acknowledges our obligation to protect the freedom to safely travel across our city – that is why we developed the Vision Zero Surrey Safe Mobility Plan. The Plan identifies four pillars of a Safe Systems Approach, and Safe Speeds is one of them. In response, we recently launched a Slow Streets Pilot Project to study how lower speed limits affect driver behaviour, and ultimately the safety on our roads. As part of the Pilot Project we will compare the impacts that 30 km/h versus 40 km/h speed limits have in Surrey neighbourhoods. 

The City is also currently creating a new Surrey Transportation Plan, for which we identified four bold moves that respond to the community values and current Surrey transportation experience. One of the bold moves, Put Safety First, proposes to build streets that prioritize safety over the movement of vehicles, which could include reducing the speed limits. We are seeking your input on each potential bold move, including the tradeoffs, to help us prioritize key transportation investments over the next 10 years. 

The City doesn't burn any wood waste in our district energy facilities, nor are we planning to do so in the foreseeable future. Surrey City Energy is powered by natural gas, as well as from biofuel from our own biofuel facility. There are plans to transition this facility to a sewer heat recovery system within the next five years to supply the baseload energy (about 70% of the energy) which will significantly reduce our emissions from the system. 

This question was submitted to the online public engagement event held on June 23rd. 

A: Education does play an important role in climate action – whether it means equipping our children and youth with facts and knowhow to feel empowered and prepared to respond to climate change, supplying the public with reliable and easy-to-understand information on the role they can play in climate action, or providing training and certification opportunities to expand workers’ skills to match the job opportunities associated with the low-carbon transition. 

You are not alone in thinking that there is currently a need for more education on climate change in our schools. In its recent draft Climate Preparedness and Adaptation Strategy, the Province proposed actions to expand climate resilience education, including developing learning resources for K-12 schools, and exploring opportunities to raise public awareness. Several independent organizations have also produced resources and lessons for teachers to cover climate change topics in their classrooms.

We are currently in the process of reviewing our integrated environmental education program, which delivers waste reduction, and water and energy conservation lessons at over 100 schools across Surrey annually (this includes SD36 elementary schools, secondary schools, adult learning centres and private schools). Through CCAS implementation, we will explore how this collaborative effort between several City departments and Surrey schools can evolve to reach even more students. 

These questions were posted to the public online engagement event held on June 23rd. 

A: The short answer is: we are working on interim GHG targets that will be included in the CCAS. The purpose of the climate action framework is to solicit feedback on preliminary policy directions; this feedback will be used, together with additional analysis, to inform the CCAS. 

• From the IPCC’s 2018 report on keeping warming below 1.5C, we know that deep, urgent reductions are crucial and 2030 is an important milestone date.
• Council directed staff to assess and propose interim GHG targets as part of developing CCAS, and we are still going through this process. The final CCAS will include both interim GHG targets and related indicators the City can use to guide and evaluate actions across all sectors.
• Staff are currently working through community-wide energy and emissions modelling scenarios, including assessing several different 2030 and 2040 GHG targets to understand what it will take to achieve them. This includes the IPCC guidance as well as CleanBC’s sectoral targets.
• The intention is to align with the science done by the IPCC. 
• Like CCAS, the Surrey Transportation Plan (STP) is still under development. Climate action forms one of the five “pillars” of the STP, and staff are working across multiple departments to ensure the CCAS and STP are aligned with each other, and will set us on the right track to reach our GHG targets. It’s likely the STP will reflect the interim GHG targets, and transportation sector targets from the CCAS.

These questions were posted to a public online engagement event held on June 23rd. 

A: The provincial and federal governments already provide various incentives for EVs, including rebates for purchasing new and used EVs, and for installing home charging. At this time, the City does not have plans to offer additional financial incentives. Rather, the City will focus on promoting those existing financial incentives across the community, and will continue to explore non-financial incentives, for example, high occupancy vehicle lane access, and preferential parking.

One recommendation heard during the public engagement on the EV Strategy was to provide incentives for lower income/wealth individuals who may otherwise be unable to shift to zero-emissions transportation. While no financial incentives are planned at this time, staff may further consider this recommendation in the future.  

Regarding incentivizing condos for EV charging specifically: 

As noted above, there are provincial incentives available for installing EV charging in condos. It is not likely that the City will directly offer incentives for installing charging in condos, since it would be very costly and not likely the most efficient (nor necessarily the most equitable) investment of public funds for zero-carbon transportation.   

However, staff responsible for the EV Strategy regularly engage with other municipalities, Metro Vancouver, BC Hydro, and EV-focused organizations like Plug-in BC to discuss EV policy issues and how to accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles. Charging in multifamily buildings is an issue and City staff will continue to collaborate with others on solutions to this challenge. While municipal incentives are not planned at this time, staff will remain open to this should a suitable approach be developed.

This question was posted to the public online engagement event held on June 23rd. 

A: Thank you for this question. It’s important to note that the CCAS follows the “transportation hierarchy” which prioritizes transportation modes in the following order: walking, cycling, transit, goods movement, shared vehicles, and personal (electric) vehicles. This is consistent with best practices to design the most efficient, equitable and sustainable transportation system. 

However, as you note, electric vehicles will be an important part of achieving net-zero emissions. Equity is an important consideration, since many people can’t drive (e.g. due to age or disability), can’t afford to buy an EV, and/or don’t have the ability to install EV charging at home. Home charging can be particularly difficult to retrofit in existing apartment buildings.  

The challenge of retrofitting is one reason the City put a bylaw in place that requires all residential parking spaces in new construction to have the necessary infrastructure for EV charging. This will make access to charging more equitable over time.  

There are also a few trends and efforts underway that are likely to make it easier for more people to own an EV. First, more used EVs are becoming available for sale, and the provincial government is offering rebates for used EVs. Secondly, the City is installing more public EV charging infrastructure throughout the City, in both existing neighbourhoods and in new growth areas. We partnered with UBC students who built a tool to help staff evaluate potential locations for public EV charging by considering multiple factors such as proximity to existing rental apartment buildings, and socioeconomic factors.

Finally, the EV Strategy lists several actions related to equity under the Supporting Home & Workplace Charging section. This includes advocating for "right-to-charge" legislation and collaborating with others to address the retrofit challenge. 

This question was posted to the online public engagement event held on June 23rd. 

A: Here are a few examples of how the City is leading in some areas of climate action to date:

• Surrey is home to the first of its kind passive house facility – The Clayton Community Centre, Surrey’s newest multi-purpose community centre combines arts, library, and recreation amenities into a sustainable building featuring Passive House design. Passive House buildings use up to 90% less energy, and this building is powered without any fossil fuels, making it a showcase for a high performance and zero-carbon building which has been a valuable learning experience for the City and other local governments.  
• Surrey has the first closed-loop organic waste facility in North America, the Surrey Biofuel facility, which processes organic waste into renewable natural gas (RNG) and high quality compost. The RNG is used to fuel the organic waste collection trucks. 
• Surrey is also proactively addressing coastal flooding and sea level rise adaptation to increase our community’s resilience to the impacts of climate change. We are currently implementing a suite of 13 projects, all addressing the common threat of coastal flooding. Two of those projects are using nature-based solutions to simultaneously address the need to adapt as well as provide environmental improvements. 

These and other projects are important successes to recognize. Looking ahead, we know we need to go further, to make climate action central to all our decision making and how we do business. 

This question was submitted to the online public engagement event held on June 23rd. 

A: Thanks, this is a good question and is something we are in the process of investigating in more detail. 

• Surrey’s GHG inventory currently includes some agriculture-related emissions including those from energy used in buildings (mostly greenhouses), accounted for in the Buildings category, and from agricultural equipment in the Non-Road Equipment category. 
• Other sources of agricultural GHG emissions that are not captured in our inventory include enteric fermentation (cow burps), land use management (e.g. cutting trees for new fields, tilling soils), and manure management.
• Data for these activities, particularly for land use management, are generally low quality and not regionally specific. The Province is currently working with a group in UBC to try to address these issues.
• For these reasons, Surrey’s GHG inventories and former community reduction targets excluded these agricultural sources and the CCAS framework not include a focus on agriculture.
• We are in the process of obtaining data to more fully understand agricultural emissions in Surrey, for possible inclusion in the CCAS at a high level.