Sustainability & Climate Change Emergency Advisory Committee

Minnie de Jong (Chair)

Antony Pitts (Vice-Chair)

Councillor Adam Bureau

Marius Marsh

John Vickers

Freya Fernandes

Judy Smith (Sustainable Cobourg Representative)

Pam Lancaster (Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority Representative)

The Sustainability and Climate Emergency Advisory Committee shall provide advice and make recommendations to Council on the following:

• The identification and implementation of new or existing programs, approaches or policies relating to the protection, sustainability and enhancement of natural resources and systems within the Municipality.
• The identification and implementation of community outreach activities which support the growth of environmental awareness and appreciation in the Municipality.  This includes providing assistance with and support for the implementation of education programs and for special events relating to environmental matters.
• Educational and/or outreach to the public regarding climate change and the work of the Advisory Committee and the Town of Cobourg relating to climate change.
• Climate change impacts in the Town of Cobourg and ways to adapt to and mitigate these impacts, which may include items relating to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases with related improvements in air quality or promoting the use of renewable energy within the Municipality.
• Environmental policy directions pursued by the Municipality, in addition to the review of current or proposed Federal and Provincial policies, legislation and/or regulations relating to the environment.
• Additional measures to address climate change, including any plans, studies and initiative related to the environment.
• The revision of the Town of Cobourg’s Climate Action Plan, as required.
• The creation and maintenance of the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan for the Town of Cobourg.
• Matters relating to environmental sustainability within the Municipality, having particular regard and commitment to long term economic, cultural and social well-being of the community and its stakeholders.
• Other related environmental and climate change matters as referred to the Committee by Council.

The Sustainability and Climate Emergency Advisory Committee shall be composed of the following members: 

• Up to six (6) and no less than four (4) citizens appointments;
• A minimum of one (1) Member of Council; 
• One (1) representative from Sustainable Cobourg; and
• One (1) representative from the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority  

Members of the Sustainability and Climate Change Advisory Committee shall be appointed for a four (4) year term that corresponds with the term of Council, expiring on November 30 of the year in which a municipal election is held, unless provided otherwise by a resolution of Council.

The Sustainability and Climate Emergency Advisory Committee shall report to the Municipal Council.  Decisions of the Committee are considered recommendations and are not final until approved by the Municipal Council unless delegated authority is granted by Council.

All meetings shall be conducted in accordance with the Town of Cobourg Advisory Committees of Municipal Council Policies and Procedures and the Town of Cobourg’s Procedural By-law.  Meetings shall be open to the public except if the subject matter being considered is within a category defined in Section 239(2), (3) or (3.1) of the Municipal Act, in which case the meeting may be closed. 

Once you're at www.footprintcalculator.org the screen will ask you for your language of choice from a pull down menus. Click the x if you want to continue in English, and your screen will look like this:

• To continue, click on the footprint (Take The First Step). 

 Once you're past the first webpage a page will appear that looks like the following (left-hand side):

Here, you can click and hold (left button) on the circle that’s on the bar and slide the circle to the position that best fits your diet, or, you can click on the “ADD DETAILS TO IMPROVE ACCURACY” text. If your screen is large enough, five circles will pop up (as above, right) and you can move the dots on the rims of the circles around to the appropriate places for your choices. If your screen is smaller, fewer circles will appear, but you can scroll to the others using the arrow on the left or right.  Once you are done, click on save. Note that the position of the circle on the bar doesn’t change with your more accurate choices, but, don’t worry, the calculator has saved your choices. 

After saving, click on the arrow at the right of the screen to move on to the next question.  You can now move through the rest of the screens in a similar manner.  If you want to backtrack, you can click on the arrow on the left of your screen to do so.  

One screen asks for the percentage of electricity that comes from renewable sources. This is a bit of a tricky question in Ontario, as 58% of our electricity is from nuclear energy, which is usually not classed as “renewable”. However, if one is interested in carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear energy itself (excluding construction, mining and concentrating issues) is not a significant source, so one could put 87% (there is no need to be that exact, as the slider makes exact numbers difficult) renewable in order to get a more accurate CO2 picture. If you don’t class nuclear as renewable, then you would have to put 29% renewable. You may wish to play with the effect of the two choices by re-running the model.

Note that the fuel economy slider shows units in both litres/100km and miles/gallon, but that the latter is in U.S. gallons, not in Imperial (Canadian) gallons. So if you think in miles/gal Canadian, you will need to divide your Canadian number by 1.2. You can look up your vehicles fuel economy (in miles/US Gallon) at: https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.shtml 

When you answer the last question, a screen will pop up asking for your name and email.  There is no requirement to give the information, and you can just skip to the results if you choose.  Similarly, the calculator may ask for a donation.  You are free to do so or to skip by the request – the calculator will give you a result either way.

The second last screen will appear as follows (layout differs depending on your screen size):

If you wish to change some answers to see what actions you could take to reduce your footprint, you can re-take the quiz, otherwise you can click on the arrow to move to the last screen. Re-taking the quiz will reset all the values back to defaults. If you wish to change an answer without resetting to defaults, use the left (back) arrow to backup through your choices.

Note that the three bars in the top right corner of the first page take you to the same menu items that are across the top of the second page above.

The “Explore Your Data” tab in these menus takes you to a map of the world so that you can compare your results with the averages of all the countries of the world.  Have fun exploring!

The last screen gives a breakdown of your footprint, and may look something like this: