Yasir Naqvi’s Climate Action Plan for Ottawa Centre

Yasir Naqvi’s Climate Action Plan for Ottawa Centre

September 2, 2021

Yasir Naqvi’s Climate Action Plan for Ottawa Centre

Climate change is the greatest threat of our time. As for many parents, my children are my main priority. I will relentlessly fight for stronger action to ensure they live in a world with a healthy environment.

As part of the Ontario Liberal government:

  • I helped achieve the phase-out of coal-fired electricity plants, the single largest reduction in greenhouse gases in North America.
  • I delivered on cleaning up the Ottawa River with the launch of the Ottawa River Action Plan and providing us with a swimmable, drinkable, and fishable Ottawa River, for everyone.
  • I secured funding for clean transportation through investments in Ottawa’s LRT and Flora Footbridge.

If elected as your MP, I will work tirelessly to further strengthen the government’s climate action and make Ottawa the greenest capital in the world – and an even better place to live

If elected as your MP, I will work to improve walking, cycling, and rolling infrastructure:

  • Advocate for stable funding for our winter trails along the Ottawa River and extend the project to close Colonel By Drive to vehicle traffic for a full-year pilot.
  • Engage with our community and City to identify additional opportunities for active transportation such as dedicated bike lanes, and support applications for funding.
  • Work to integrate the Ottawa LRT with new world-class Civic Hospital to help get cars off the road, reduce emissions and build a better transit system for hospital workers and users, and our community.

If elected as your MP, I will work to improve Ottawa Centre’s air quality:

  • Working with community partners and advocates to identify bad air quality hotspots in Ottawa Centre, and work to reduce its health impacts through investments in better ventilation systems for schools, long-term care homes and community buildings.
  • Advocate that the newly acquired OC Transpo electric busses be deployed on service routes in parts of our community with higher pollution levels.
  • Push to have all new homes and buildings built to a net-zero standard by 2030 at the latest, and existing homes and buildings retrofitted to become more energy efficient.

If elected as your MP, I will work to enhance the green space in our community:

  • Working with community partners and advocates to develop an urban tree canopy strategy to protect and expand our community’s trees and native plants.
  • Introduce a law to protect the Central Experimental Farm, forever.
  • Take action to reduce the impacts of climate change, with measures to protect homes from flood risk and restoration of wetlands to reduce flooding.

These actions — and more — will make Ottawa a cleaner, healthier and better place to live. Now is not the time to backtrack or delay. Please join me in this fight to tackle climate change by taking advantage of the programs the Liberal government offers such as buying an EV and retrofitting your house. We all have a part to play in Canada’s effort to reduce our emissions and make Ottawa the greenest capital in the world. Our kids’ future depends on it.

The Liberal Government has taken bold action to cut pollution and has made real progress in the fight against climate change, but we know that more must be done

We brought in a price on pollution: Instead of fighting climate change, Conservative provincial governments fought us in court. In March, we won that fight. The Supreme Court made a historic decision, acknowledged that climate change is real and accepted our plan to ensure it cannot be free to pollute anywhere in Canada. We are more determined than ever to take bold action on climate change.

On Transportation, we have already:

  • Set a 2035 target for ending the sale of passenger vehicles that run on fossil fuels, built charging stations, and put in place incentives for both individuals and businesses to buy EVs.
  • Helping automakers build EVs and batteries in Canada.
  • Investing in public transit at historic levels.

On buildings, we have already:

  • Started strengthening the building code so new buildings can be net-zero.
  • Helping homeowners to increase energy efficiency and purchase heat pumps to replace fossil fuels for home heating.
  • Started helping municipalities and social housing do retrofits to cut emissions from their facilities.

On electricity, we have already:

  • Banned coal-fired electricity all across Canada as of 2030; Alberta is on track to do this by 2023.
  • Helping remote communities replace diesel-fired electricity with renewables.
  • Increased the tax breaks for producers of electricity from solar and wind.

On industrial emissions, we have already:

  • Regulating reductions in the emissions of methane from fossil fuel operations.
  • Helping heavy industry such as steel mills reduce emissions with still new and expensive clean technologies.
  • Prioritizing low-carbon building materials in federal infrastructure projects, started greening the federal government’s vehicle fleet, and creating data-sharing tools for low-carbon products.

We also:

  • Committed to ban harmful single-use plastics and implement a plan to end plastic waste by 2030.
  • Protected vast amount of Canadian land – and the carbon that it stores.
  • Started working to deal with the harm of a changing climate, for example mapping areas at high flood risk, assisting homeowners’ efforts to protect their homes, and engaging with stakeholders on a National Adaptation Strategy.

These actions — and many more— are already helping Canadians to seize economic opportunity as we reduce emissions. Getting this far was a six-year effort. We had to start from scratch. We often had to stare down provinces and industry. These actions are just now starting to have an impact, and if left in place, models show that they will reduce emissions by over 36% by 2030.

A re-elected Liberal government will do even more to meet our ambitious target of reducing emissions by 40 – 45% by 2030

  • We will implement a Clean Electricity Standard to require the electricity grid to be a net-zero by 2035.
  • We will drive down emissions from the oil and gas sector with 5-year targets starting in 2025. • We will end thermal coal exports no later than 2030.
  • We will fund retrofits for more homes, and chart a path to net-zero emissions from buildings by 2050.
  • We will require 50% of passenger vehicles sold to be zero emission by 2030, and 100% by 2035.
  • We will require oil and gas companies to cut methane emissions further, by 75% by 2030.
  • We will launch a National Adaptation Strategy to protect communities from rising extreme weather risk, like flooding.
  • We will eliminate fossil fuel subsidies sooner, by 2023, and plan to phase-out public financing of the fossil fuel sector.

All this progress is in danger.

Erin O’Toole’s target is lower and not aligned with the science. His plan is weak, and his climate-denying party members will not let him implement it. He would roll back progress.

Jagmeet Singh has adopted key goals of the Liberal Plan, but has no details on how to achieve them. He would cause delays by making changes for the sake of change. And he would needlessly cost jobs by reducing the competitiveness of Canadian industry because he does not understand how to fight climate change AND rebuild the economy.

PROGRESSIVE. EXPERIENCED. DETERMINED.
yasirnaqvi.liberal.ca |  613.729.6101 |  445 Churchill Ave North, Ottawa