Environmental Plans & Strategies
Hamilton's Climate Action Strategy
Engage Hamilton
Calling Climate Champions
The City is creating a first ever Community Climate Change Advisory Committee - an important piece of Hamilton’s Climate Action Strategy.
Staff will be holding engagement activities over the next few months to consult/collaborate with interested stakeholders & citizens.
On March 27, 2019 Hamilton City Council declared a Climate Change Emergency. The City of Hamilton is on a mission to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and prepare for the unavoidable impacts of climate change.
Locally climate change can be seen as:
- the increased frequency and severity of heat waves resulting in heat related illnesses and drought conditions;
- the increased severity and frequency of storms, including heavy precipitation leading to flooding, shoreline and escarpment erosion
- the increased frequency and severity of temperature and precipitation leading to the increased replacement and maintenance costs of roads and transportation infrastructure.
Climate change affects everyone. the impacts of climate change cause millions of dollars of infrastructure damage, damage homes and businesses, and put people’s health and safety at risk.
These negative effects will worsen as the level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere continues to rise. Just as the City is taking action, it is critical that everyone who lives, works, plays and learns in Hamilton makes changes to reduce their carbon footprint at home, at work, and in their everyday lives.
Hamilton’s Climate Action Strategy
Hamilton’s Climate Action Strategy is the City’s next evolution in the response to the Climate Change Emergency Declaration. Approved in August 2022, there are several actions the City, and broader community, continue to undertake to accelerate Hamilton’s transition to a prosperous, equitable, resilient post-carbon City.
Central to environmental sustainability and climate resiliency is changing how the City works and advancing municipal climate policy to make a positive difference on the organization and the community. Hamilton’s Climate Action Strategy advances the City’s response to the Climate Change Emergency Declaration and consists of two major steams:
- climate mitigation: reduction of greenhouse gases (the cause of climate change)
- climate adaptation: decreasing impacts and preparing for unavoidable impacts of a changing climate
- 1994 - Hamilton joins FCM's Partners for Climate Change
- 2004 - Hamilton Climate Change Vulnerability Study (part of GRIDS)
- 2008 - Completes Corporate Strategic Air Quality and Climate Change Plan
- 2009 - Corporate and Community GHG Emissions Inventory: GHG Targets
- 2010 - GTA Clean Air Council Recognition of Achievement for Clean Air and Climate Change
- 2011 - City hosts Community Climate Change Town Hall and creates Hamilton Climate Change Charter
- 2013 - New GHG Targets: 20% by 2020, 50% by 2030, 80% by 2050
- 2015 - Council endorse Hamilton's Community Climate Change Action Plan; sets GHG reduction targets
- 2016 - Hamilton achieves milestone 2 of ICLEI's Building Adaptive Resilient Cities
- 2018 - Formation of Bay Area Climate Change Office and Bay Area Climate Change Council
- 2019 - Hamilton City Council Declares Climate Change Emergency (March). Corporate Climate Change Task Force Report (December)
- 2019 - City of Hamilton identifies 9 corporate goals and 51 areas of focus for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation
- 2021 - Completion of Science of Climate Change Report for the City of Hamilton using global and national climate models downscaled to the local level
- 2022 - ReCharge Hamilton: Our Community Energy + Emissions Plan
- 2022 - Hamilton’s Climate Change Impact Adaptation Plan
Date modified
December 01, 2022