Monday at the ubcm is a pre conference day, the official start of the conference isn't until Wednesday.. But, pre conference sessions are a good opportunity to have some more in depth discussions with representatives from around the province, on their challenges and successes.
Of course, the emphasis everywhere is on green and sustainability, so I chose to attend two sessions - a green cities session and a sustainability session.
The sustainability workshop was quite broad ranging, with discussions starting around brownfields, and industrial land conversion/ remediation. Various perspectives were discussed, from port alberni, Victoria, Vancouver, and many more. The discussions tended to move to taxation issues as well as the cost of enironmental remediation and liability. Transferance of liability for brown fields was a hot topic, and the ability for buyers of lands to assume or not liability for past activities.
There was also significant discussion with provincial staff about species at risk. Species at risk definition varies in different parts of the province, and in this conversation it really drives home the rural / urban differences. Many rural communities spend considerably more time and resources on wildlife issues than we do in the urban cores, although the same issues exist of different scale for all of us.
The question / answer session and subsequent discussion was very valuable again to share the experiences of different cities and regionss.
The afternoon session was the green cities workshop, centered around the work of the Green Communites Committee and the climate action accord. Prince George, Delta and Saltspring Island presented on their initiatives and projects, and their successes and challenges rolling out their GHG reduction plans in their communities. Again, there was a great exchange of ideas and mutual learning. The province discussed carbon offset credits and the Pacific Carbon Trust, a company created by the province which will pre-qualify offset credits for government that adheer's to the criteria established. The green communities committee talked about the framework for Smart Tool web pilot for calculating GHG reduction and credits.
Most disappointing at this workshop was that discussion was around Reporting, Offsets and Measuring GHG's, but nothing around REDUCTION - the offset discussions can become very circular , for example, Port Moody, having curbside organic collection could report this as a reduction but in the framework could in theory also sell offsets to others as this would be a 'qualified' offset. A little weird and confusing, but the GHG offset discussion in general tends to get that way sometimes !
Good conversation and networking at both of these workshops, all in all , a pretty good day !
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