City Partners Maintain Climate Change Action Despite National Cuts: Residential Energy Efficiency Programme Valued at Local Level

Abstract

Cities, regional governments and their local utilities are taking leading roles in programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Agenda 21 highlighted the need for such local action to achieve the goals of the 1992 Earth Summit and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This trend of increasing local action was demonstrated dramatically in Canada in 2006 when the newly elected federal government cancelled many of the previous government's climate change programmes. The EnerGuide for Houses Program illustrates the growing importance of local decisions where the federal government developed a home energy rating system that was delivered through a range of partnerships across the country. Despite all political parties voting to increase funding for the programme in 2005, the Conservative government cancelled it in May 2006. The response by provincial and local governments was immediate. Their actions revealed the ability and desire among lower-tier governments to sustain popular climate change initiatives. Both the political responses and financial implications are included in the examination of the shift in environmental responsibility from the national to the local sphere.