The City of London is moving to the next stage of development of the Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP) and your input is essential. High level feedback has been received from many of you already through the initial feedback on Get Involved and through questions posed at the London Lifestyle Home Show on January 31 to February 2, 2020 ( please refer to the August SPPC report for more details on the feedback received). The initial messages received were that the vast majority of Londoners are concerned about climate change and are willing to make changes to address it. Now it’s time to talk about what this action plan should include. As a community, we need to create the first iteration of the plan that will take us through the next 30 years, including important milestone dates, and help us arrive at a more climate resilient, net-zero emissions London.

City staff have used the last few unprecedented months to dig deep into what other municipalities are doing (and have done) to address the climate emergency and to evaluate London’s challenges to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and becoming more resilient. The City now needs your input and assistance to evaluate potential actions, identify ones that have been missed or need to be changed and cultivate or strengthen relationships to ensure that the implementation of this plan is successful. A big part of this is reaching Londoners that are often missed in this important dialogue and making sure we are being as diverse as possible.

There are a few new ways that you can participate in this process to help develop London’s CEAP.

1. Quick idea sharing – Questions will be posed to Get Involved, allowing you to provide feedback on the specific item. This is the least amount of time required to have your voice heard and all comments will be incorporated when considering potential actions related to the question’s focus.
2. Feedback Form – A list of high level actions to potentially be included in the CEAP are presented here, separated into categories related to how we live, move, grow, green and prosper. This feedback form will be used to rank potential actions that have been identified. We will update this in November with any new actions that have been suggested through the first month of engagement, so if there are actions you think should be included that you don’t see here, please share with us.
3. Discussion Primer – This document details the potential high level actions and some supporting actions that could be included in the CEAP. If you want to provide detailed feedback on how important each high level action is and want to weigh in even further to provide input on supporting actions to achieve the high level actions, this feedback channel is for you. It is estimated that 30-60 minutes might be required to go through everything, but if there are only specific components you want to provide feedback on, you can take less time and do so.

In addition to the feedback channels here on Get Involved, there will be other ways to provide your input in the months to come:

1. eDemocracy Climate Action Simulator – This interactive tool will help you understand and choose a mix of actions to help us reach our 2030 GHG emissions target. Feedback from user input to this tool will be used to understand how Londoners feel about different actions and how much priority and effort should be invested in different areas.
2. Direct Consultation Meetings (October to February 15, 2021) – City staff are making themselves available to businesses and organizations in the City that wish to speak directly to specific issues and take an active role in the plan’s creation and/or implementation. If you or your organization would like to meet, please send a request to ClimateAction@London.ca to get the conversation going. These meetings will be held by held online through MS Teams or Zoom.

If you have any other ways you’d like to engage (e.g. you have a community group meeting you’d like to have a facilitated discussion at), please let us know via email.

There are also events and tools that will be available during the rest of the year where you can engage City staff, community groups and others to learn more about what we can do together to address the climate emergency. City staff will incorporate learnings and feedback through these channels wherever possible and participation in these events and use of these tools is highly recommended. Some examples of these events and tools are:

• Green in the City is a series of free environmentally themed workshops this winter and spring online.
• My Wild Green Home is a new platform bringing together local environmental organizations, and aims to help Londoners take climate action at home.
• Green Economy London has launched London Beep Eco, a new tool this fall to help businesses understand and improve their energy use.

Check back here regularly for updated events and tools, and if you are an event organizer please let us know and we’ll list your climate action related event here.