Toronto City Council has adopted its first annual budget ever to include a carbon budget process, resulting in nearly three dozen new or enhanced climate actions that will reduce carbon emissions by 244,615 tonnes per year once they’re implemented.
The measures, representing about C$2 billion in new investment, include $636 million over two years for new electric buses and charging systems, $239 million to acquire new shelter space and renovate it to be net-zero ready, $34 million over three years for deep energy retrofits in public housing, and $30 million over four years for home energy loans, The Atmospheric Fund (TAF) writes in a blog post this week.
TAF VP of Policy and Programs Bryan Purcell says the new process [pdf] generated 112 emission reduction proposals from 16 city entities. The 31 best were incorporated in the 2025 budget, while another 23 were set aside for further review.
The new process “marks a significant improvement to Toronto’s budgeting and climate action planning,” Purcell writes. “It is already driving an increased level of investment in climate action, while creating more transparency around what climate projects are being funded—or not funded.”
At the same time, the process “is certainly not a guarantee of sufficient investment,” Purcell says, pointing to a “disappointingly small”, $8-million investment in charging infrastructure that was less than half of what city staff had recommended.
“I remember when we first proposed this approach many budgets ago,” wrote former city councillor Mike Layton, now vice president of philanthropy, corporate and community partners, at Second Harvest. “It had a couple failed starts (at one point, as part of a creative accounting exercise, rehabilitating the Gardiner Expressway was considered as a project advancing our climate initiative), but happy to see Toronto start to genuinely connect carbon emissions and budgeting. Still a work in progress—but some progress being made.”
