Blog: A Protected Future – Bill 198 Creates Strategic Action Plan that Addresses Extreme Heat
By Maya Hribar
With the ongoing climate crisis, extreme heat is getting worse. It is a danger for people with disabilities, seniors, children, socially isolated individuals and lower-income people, as they disproportionately suffer and experience its many health implications.
Tackling global warming and addressing extreme heat is essential. In Ontario, a private member’s bill, Bill 198, An Act providing a climate change adaptation program for Ontario, recently had its first reading on May 16, 2024. If passed, the bill would enact the Ontario Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Act, 2024, setting out the procedures for creating, implementing, and financially supporting a Strategic Action Plan.
The Strategic Action Plan would aim “to ensure that Ontario citizens, communities, infrastructure and natural environment are protected from the risks and impacts of climate change”, which we know continue to grow and “threaten our health and security, our homes, our forests and wildlife, our electricity network, our roads and our water supply”.
Briefly, Section 3 of the Bill lays out how the Strategic Action Plan is to be developed; Section 4 lays out the establishment of an Ontario Climate Adaptation Fund and its functions; Section 5 lays out the establishment of an Ontario Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Resource Centre and its functions; Section 6 lays out the establishment of an Ontario Whole-of-Government Climate Adaptation Co-ordination Secretariat and its functions; Section 7 lays out the review of a Strategic Action Plan every two years; and Section 8 lists the contents of a Strategic Action Plan, referring to Sections 9 to 15 which detail specific adaptation activities based on a given topic.
On extreme heat, Section 8 states that a Strategic Action Plan shall, among other things, include:
4. Improvement of extreme heat preparedness and resilience, including through the measures set out in section 10.
The measures set out in Section 10, Extreme heat preparedness and resilience, include:
- Conducting extreme heat risk mapping to identify vulnerable areas and populations at elevated risk from extreme heat events.
- Developing and implementing a system for identifying and publishing timely data on heat-related deaths and illnesses in the province.
- Requiring that official plans incorporate strategies to assess and reduce urban heat islands.
- Providing funding for municipalities to plan and implement urban cooling strategies including cool and green roofs, cool pavements and parking lots, green corridors, expansion of tree canopies, green spaces and parks in nature-deprived areas and the provision of shade structures.
- Assessing the need for cooling in schools, childcare centres, hospitals and nursing homes and developing a strategy with targets and dates to reduce heat loads and provide cooling during extreme heat events.
- Amending the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 to set a maximum temperature requirement for rental units.
- Providing to the owners of rental properties that currently lack cooling systems grants and incentives for retrofits, including heat pumps for individual units, that reduce heat loads or provide cooling and allow compliance with the maximum temperature requirement referred to in paragraph 6.
- Conducting an annual province-wide awareness campaign about the risks of extreme heat and how to stay safe, using messaging modes most likely to reach people at elevated risk.
- Passing and enforcing regulations related to heat stress under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to protect workers whose work exposes them to hot conditions, such as roofing, road paving and agriculture.
Bill 198 seeks to address some of the worst impacts of extreme heat, in particular for low-income tenants with rental units that are much too hot to be safe and outdoor workers. We urge all parties to support the bill and take action to protect our communities from extreme heat.
Source
Bill 198, An Act providing a climate change adaptation program for Ontario, 1st Sess, 43rd Leg, Ontario, 2024 (first reading 16 May 2024).
Image courtesy of @BeritK via Canva.com
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