Save the planet resources
Scientists suggested that we are in a state of “ecological overshoot”. Global society today is demanding more in a year through consumption of energy and resources than nature can provide, and polluting more than nature can assimilate. Simply stated, it would take 1.5 Earths to sustainably provide the ecological services we currently use. This led to issues such as climate change.
Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan
The Greenest City Action Plan is divided into 10 goal areas addressing three overarching areas of focus:
- Zero Carbon
- Zero Waste
- Healthy Ecosystems
With lighter footprint, our goal is to achieve a one-plant ecological footprint. Our 2020 target is to reduce Vancouver’s per-capita footprint by 33% from 2006 levels
Sustainability gap
To achieve ‘One Planet Living’ Vancouver’s ecological footprint would need to reduce from 3.4 gha per capita (including national and provincial services) to 1.7 gha per capita. This is a sustainability gap of 50%.
In order to achieve the target of maintaining global temperatures below a 2 degree Celsius in warming, GHGs must be reduced to 2 tCO2e per capita. Given Vancouver’s current CBEI per capita emissions of 7.7 tCO2e, GHG emissions would need to be reduced by 74%; and based on the GPC per capita emissions of 4.1 tCO2e, they would need to be reduced by 51%.