“Cities are where the climate battle will be won or lost,” said Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), during a conference of city and government officials in Germany.
Coming to us from Environmental Defence and Hamilton 350, the following are specific questions for municipal candidates to gauge their understanding and commitment.
Write to candidates in your Ward and ask them about their commitment to meaningful changes for Climate Action in Hamilton. Click the following link for candidates by Ward and contact info.
- Do you support intensification of the city by allowing for more townhomes, walk-up apartments, pedestrian amenities like small corner stores and pharmacies, to the areas currently restricted to single detached houses.?
- Do you commit to transforming car-dependent subdivisions throughout your municipality into complete communities with densities and a mix of uses that support public transit and active transportation, by changing zoning to add more land-efficient, lower-cost housing types?
- Do you commit to removing zoning and other obstacles that are limiting the creation of non-profit and deeply affordable housing to noisier and more polluted areas of the city?
- How will you make it easier for residents to get to places by walking, biking and public transit? Will you require bike lanes, pedestrian marking, and accessible crosswalks or traffic signals be added to far more intersections?
- Will you commit to reducing the distance and frequency of travel by private vehicle by rapidly increasing free public transportation
- What plans do you have to help reduce energy consumption in our community? How do you plan to work with business and industry to encourage a shift in approaches to energy use?
(Incentives to build energy efficient buildings, retrofit existing municipal buildings, requiring that furnaces, hot water heaters, stoves and ovens in new homes use electricity rather than fossil fuels, funding energy efficient retrofits, solar and battery storage)