The Government of Alberta defines the following communities as urban: Airdrie, Calgary, Cochrane, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Leduc, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Okotoks, Red Deer, Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, St. Albert. All others are rural.
Emissions from large industrial facilities (manufacturing, oil and gas extraction) are counted in a community’s emissions inventory but largely not within a municipality's power to influence. Exclude industrial emissions to get a better view of how implementing the Big Moves will impact a municipality’s emissions.
| Population | # of homes | # of vehicles | Annual Emissions by year (tCO2e) | |||
| 2006 | 2011 | 2016 | 2021 | |||
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Change in Emissions from 2006 to 2021 | - | |||||
Historical community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by sector, 2006 - 2021.
Sources: National Inventory Report, Alberta Regional Dashboard, GHGRP, Statistics Canada
Historical community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by fuel source, 2006 - 2021.
Sources: National Inventory Report, Alberta Regional Dashboard, GHGRP, Statistics Canada
By 2030, how much will your community reduce GHG emissions compared to 2006 levels? A target of 43% by 2030 aligns with the Paris Agreement signed by the Government of Canada.
By 2050, how much will your community reduce GHG emissions compared to 2006 levels? A target of 100% by 2050 aligns with the Paris Agreement signed by the Government of Canada.
Scenarios use predictions about technological development, funding, public interest and support, and political pressure to better understand trends about how emissions are likely to increase or decrease. Adjust the scenario to explore how these trends will influence your community's emissions. Adjust the slider to explore the impact of different scenarios:
The Base Case assumes current trends will hold, the Optimistic case assumes trends will accelerate to be more supportive of emissions reduction, and the Conservative case assumes trends will slow to be less supportive of emissions reduction.
Adjust the sliders in each Big Move section below to see what happens as your community invests more in the success of each Big Move. Sliding the dial to the right represents full implementation and maximum ambition and efficacy in achieving the emissions reduction potential for a Big Move.
Click on theicon beside each Big Move for examples of what changes occur in a community that fully implements a Big Move for maximum impact. Adjust the sliders, left to right, to the appropriate level for your community or to explore how changing the level of ambition impacts the inventory graphs to the right. To understand the actions, benefits, and opportunities of each Big Move, be sure to visit the Alberta Climate Leaders Playbook - http://www.abclimateleaders.ca
How big of an impact do the Big Moves have on your community's emissions? Adjust the modeling to see predicted impacts in the tables and charts below.
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Potential Emissions Reductions
(tonnes CO2e) |
|
|---|---|
| 2050 Emissions without Big Moves (business as usual) | - |
| 2050 Emissions reduced by Big Moves (as modeled) | - |
| 2050 Emissions remaining to be eliminated | - |
| 2050 Emissions reduction from most impactful Big Move: - | - |
| Change between 2021 and 2050 as modeled | |
|
Results on the Ground
|
2030 | 2050 |
|---|---|---|
| # of vehicles converted to electric | - | - |
| # of equivalent vehicles displaced by walking, cycling, and improved transit/land use | - | - |
| # of new buildings built to 10% above Alberta Building Code | - | - |
| # of existing homes retrofitted | - | - |
| # of existing homes converted to heat pump heating/year | - | - |
| # of homes with rooftop solar |
Community-wide greenhouse gas emissions projected 2021 - 2050 with business-as-usual. As you adjust the Big Moves sliders, the graph will change to show the corresponding reduction in emissions below business-as-usual. This showcases the potential for each Big Move to reduce emissions over time.
Why do you have remaining emissions after pursuing after pursuing every 'Big Move' at maximum ambition? Municipalities in Alberta do not have full authority to influence all types of energy use/sources of emissions. The building code, commercial vehicle emission regulations, and the electricity grid’s energy mix, for instance, are all factors outside of local, municipal control. Regional, provincial and federal governments all have important roles to play, and your maximum ambition still matters. By setting ambitious targets and implementing impactful initiatives within your jurisdiction, you can lead by example, inspire others to take action, and influence policy and program changes at other levels of government.
Community-wide energy costs in 2021 and 2030 with business-as-usual (BAU) data. As you adjust the Big Moves sliders, the "2030 Plan" will change to show the corresponding fuel cost savings related to the emissions reductions from new policy/action.
Sources: Statistics Canada (costs for gasoline, diesel, propane, heating oil), Alberta Utilities Commission (costs for electricity, natural gas).
For each Big Move action employed, a number of co-benefits can be realized. As you adjust the Big Moves sliders, this table will change to show the corresponding potential co-benefits.
For each Big Move action employed, a number of co-benefits can be realized. As you adjust the Big Moves sliders, this table will change to show the corresponding potential co-benefits.
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Big Moves & Strategies
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Co-benefits
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Download a copy of this draft energy and emissions inventory and the Big Moves modelling you have configured.
Get in touch with any questions or feedback on this tool. We can also help if you would like to develop a more detailed inventory and plan.
This tool creates draft energy & emissions inventories for any local government in Alberta, and allows users to conduct simplified modelling to see the effectiveness of implementing actions to meet GHG reduction targets.
The tool is meant to help local government staff, elected officials, and other stakeholders understand what their community’s emissions are, and how they can best reduce them.
The tool should be used in conjunction with the Climate Leaders Playbook (“the Playbook”).
The Playbook provides the needed context for this tool and describes each of the Big Moves in more detail.
Transportation data has been provided by the Government of Alberta (through the Alberta Regional Dashboard) and Statistics Canada (through Census data). Commercial and residential building data was derived from Census data along with National Inventory Report. Industrial emissions were derived from the Government of Canada’s GHG Reporting Program database for large emitters.
Population and population growth data has been calculated from recent census years for the community, from Statistics Canada. Note that population does not include tourists/commuters.Energy prices and energy price projections are estimated from CEA’s experience.
The modelled impacts of the Big Moves have been calculated using CEA’s extensive experience estimating impacts of energy & emissions reduction initiatives in Western Canada communities.
The energy & emissions inventories, and the modelling, should be considered draft and high level. They are however, useful to get a sense of where a community may be able to make the biggest impacts to reducing its emissions, and what GHG emission reduction targets it may be able to achieve in the short-term. The simplified modelling used here has been created by sharply editing a much larger community energy & emissions modelling tool that CEA has continuously developed since 2010 and used in dozens of communities around BC, then converting it for the Alberta context.
Note that there are many things that can influence the effectiveness of emission reducing initiatives for a community (e.g. climate, economy, disposable income of residents, fuel availability). It is not possible to create a simple tool that accounts for all of these. Tailored modelling work would be necessary.
The inventories created here are similar in categories to the Province of BC’s Community Energy & Emissions Inventories (CEEI) for BC communities (including estimates for transportation in all cases ), and would also meet the criteria for FCM-ICLEI’s Partners for Climate Protection Community Milestone 1. Note that these inventories do not contain the additional level of detail required by some other inventory methodologies (e.g. land use is excluded), and neither do they include estimates for embodied carbon emissions.
For more detailed inventory and modelling work, or for a Community Energy & Emissions Plan / Climate Action Plan, please contact CEA.
For each Big Move action employed, a number of resiliency co-benefits can be realized. The degree of impact for each co-benefit will depend on the number of Big Move actions, and the level of implementation. The “# of co-benefits” indicator shows that a particular resiliency co-benefit could be positively impacted by implementation of the appropriate Big Move actions; it does not necessarily correlate to the degree of impact. For example, a value of 2 for Air Quality does not mean that it is exactly twice as impactful as a value of 1 for Community Cohesion. This requires a common metric to measure against, and considerable resources to determine relative impact, both of which are beyond the scope of this high level tool.
| AQ | Air Quality |
| AT | Active Transportation |
| BAU | Business As Usual - No Community Actions are taken, but Federal and Provincial legislation currently in place is factored in |
| CEA | Community Energy Association |
| GHG | Greenhouse Gas |
| LDV | Light Duty Vehicles |
| LFG | Landfill Gas |
| MDP | Municipal Development Plan |
| MHDV | Medium and Heavy Duty Vehicles |
| PV | Solar photovoltaic (cell) |
| tCO2e | Tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent |
| VKT | Vehicle kilometres travelled |
| ZEV | Zero emission vehicle |