Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability

Climate Resiliency Community Dialogues

As we continue to feel the impacts of climate change in the coming decades, it is critical that we prepare our communities. The City of Ottawa is currently developing a Climate Resiliency Strategy to identify Ottawa’s largest vulnerabilities and create an action plan to mitigate these in the face of climate change.

The City’s Climate Change and Resiliency unit is looking to hear from communities across Ottawa to inform the Climate Resiliency Strategy and programming, recognizing that people will face different impacts based on many factors including geographic location, age, gender, race, and income.

CAFES entered into agreement with The City of Ottawa to organize approximately 10 in person Climate Resiliency Community Dialogues in partnership with Community and Citizens Associations across Ottawa! These Community Dialogues focused on climate resiliency and community preparedness for climate impacts such as extreme weather events, flooding, and higher temperatures. The workshops took place between May and June.

The goal of these dialogues was to foster discussion around what climate impacts residents and communities are most concerned about, how prepared they feel, and potential solutions to mitigate these impacts. The insights from these workshops will be considered in the city’s creation of a Climate Resiliency Strategy, and will be shared with host Community and Citizens Associations. CAFES is organizing follow up Climate Caucus meetings to facilitate information sharing after the workshops.

You can find the list of workshops, along with our partner Community/ Citizen's Association and the report from each workshop in the table below.

Ward Neighbourhood Date and Time Dialogue Report
17Old Ottawa East May 12th from 7 - 9 PM Old Ottawa East Report
4Kanata NorthMay 13th from 9 - 11 AM Kanata Report
21Burritts Rapids May 16th from 7 - 9 PM Burritts Rapids Report
3 & 24Barrhaven West & Barrhaven East May 17th from 7:15 - 9:15 PM Barrhaven Report
15Hintonburg, Mechanicsville, Champlain Park, Wellington Village May 23rd from 7 - 9 PM Ward 15 Report
12 & 13Lindenlea, Manor Park, New Edinburgh, Overbrook, Rockcliffe, VanierMay 30th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM Community Collective (Wards 12&13) Report
18Riverview Park & Alta Vista June 6th from 7 - 9 PM Riverview Park & Alta Vista Report
TBDOrleansJune 9th from 6:30-8:30 PM Orléans Report
14Somerset (with Dalhousie & Centretown Community Associations)June 13th from 6:30-8:30 PMDalhousie & Centretown Report
5West Carleton June 29th from 6:30-8:30 PMWest Carleton Report
City wideVirtual June 19th from 6:00-8:00 PMVirtual Report

You can find a list of resources on climate impacts and resiliency at this link.

Please note the following guidelines/ expectations that we had for these events (the scope was the same for the workshop reports)

Be kind and respectful. There will be no tolerance for disruptive behaviour and we will be asking people to leave if necessary.

The purpose of the session is to share how climate change impacts are affecting you and your community; and to learn and share about how to respond at the individual, community and city level. Facilitators will be guiding participants to stay on this topic.

CAFES is informed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Assessment Reports on the global state of climate change. The IPCC is the United Nations body that assesses the science behind climate change and has 195 member governments. Experts review thousands of scientific papers to create Assessment Reports which are in turn reviewed by governments. We are not here to discuss the validity of the IPCC scientific and governmental consensus on the climate emergency.

The City is taking action on Climate Change based on direction from City Council and the Provincial Government

Council has declared a climate emergency and given staff direction to do this work

The province requires the City to consider and address climate change through the Planning Act and Asset Management Regulations

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