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 has 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 will focus on climate resiliency and community preparedness for climate impacts such as extreme weather events, flooding, and higher temperatures. The workshops will be taking place between May and early June.
The goal of these dialogues is to foster discussion around what climate impacts residents and communities are most concerned about, how prepared they feel, and what strategies can 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 will organize follow up Climate Caucus meetings to facilitate information sharing after the workshops.
We will be organizing a workshop in the following wards:
| Ward | Neighbourhood | Date and Time | Link to Register |
| 17 | Old Ottawa East | May 12th from 7 - 9 PM | https://bit.ly/41mbth0 |
| 4 | Kanata North | May 13th from 9 - 11 AM | https://bit.ly/41bdfRU |
| 21 | Burritts Rapids | May 16th from 7 - 9 PM | https://bit.ly/3mE43qc |
| 3 & 24 | Barrhaven West & Barrhaven East | May 17th from 7:15 - 9:15 PM | https://bit.ly/3oml6O6 |
| 15 | Hintonburg, Mechanicsville, Champlain Park, Wellington Village | May 23rd from 7 - 9 PM | https://bit.ly/3oshppR |
| 12 & 13 | Lindenlea, Manor Park, New Edinburgh, Overbrook, Rockcliffe, Vanier | May 30th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM | https://bit.ly/41ld2Mc |
| 18 | Riverview Park & Alta Vista | June 6th from 7 - 9 PM | https://bit.ly/3Ag4zOi |
| TBD | Orleans | June 9th from 6:30-8:30 PM | https://bit.ly/3LB8Elg |
| 14 | Somerset (with Dalhousie & Centretown Community Associations) | June 13th from 6:30-8:30 PM | https://bit.ly/413by8c |
| 5 | West Carleton | TBD | Coming soon! |
If there is no workshop near you, consider attending a virtual dialogue on June 19th from 6:00-8:00 pm! You can register at this link.
** Please note that in order to keep the workshop focused on local topics and challenges only register if you live in the Ward/ neighbourhood of a given workshop.
Please note the following guidelines/ expectations for this event:
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
