Climate Action Explorer

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.

All emission numbers shown are in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

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, population change, and climate changes are 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