By Cecilia Nasmith

Four speakers addressed Cobourg council Monday's committee-of-the-whole meeting to take it to task for insufficient follow-up to their declaration last month of a climate emergency.

With council set to approve a final 2020 budget Feb. 3, they are hoping there is time to allocate sufficient funds for a meaningful response to the emergency.

The first speaker, Bruce Bellaire of Blue Dot Northumberland, reminded council that the motion making the declaration included three items to address the emergency: an integrated community sustainability plan and new green-development standards to be developed over the next couple of years, with the aid of a new staffer hired specifically for that purpose since – as the speakers have heard – the planning-and-development department are already understaffed.

The speakers have noticed that only the integrated community sustainability plan is budgeted for, with the other two items presumably folded into that one budget item – and only $85,000 allotted for that budget item both this year and next.

“In December 2019, Cobourg declared a climate emergency, acknowledging an unprecedented crisis requiring unprecedented measures,” Bellaire said.

“It's not enough to declare a climate emergency. All the actions of Cobourg council and Cobourg staff must reflect that.”

The speakers cited warnings from the United Nations of dozens of countries facing extremely high levels of water stress with compromised sanitation and quality, not to mention the wildly out-of-control fires in Australia.

“Council should not be afraid to exceed its 1.9% budget-increase target to address this emergency,” Bellaire said.

Cobourg resident Richard Thyssen offered his own figures to approximate what those three items should cost, estimating that the 2020 budget should allow $213,750, followed by $160,000 in 2021, “if my numbers are correct.

“The proposal is $85,000 over the next two years, which is less than half, if I am right,” Thyssen said.

“Whatever the right number, make sure you have enough money to do this. I don't think an arbitrary (budget) cap is reasonable if it means we are not able to address the concerns we are facing.”

Gudrun Ludorf-Weaver of Sustainable Cobourg added her plea to the cause, recalling how pleased her group had been to get the climate declaration and the prospect of the three items - and how disappointed they had been to see them given short shrift in the draft budget.

In any other time, Ludorf-Weaver said, holding the budget to a 1.9% increase would be laudable.

“But these are not normal circumstances. I am here on behalf of Sustainable Cobourg to urge council to provide funding for all three actions identified in its climate-emergency-declaration motion,” she said.

“It would be imprudent to declare an emergency which is not quickly followed by a response plan. We have to declare this a priority. There will be other costs to pay – human costs – if we don't.”

Deputy Mayor Suzanne Seguin made the motion to refer these presentations to the Jan. 9 budget discussions.

The fourth speaker addressed council during the committee-of-the-whole open-forum at the end of the council meeting.

“I think council risks being embarrassed if its response to what is a formally declared emergency doesn't seem like an emergency response,” the man said.

“If you declare an emergency and then respond in a timid fashion, I think you will end up, unfortunately, scrambling months later to get it up to what a person would think is a reasonable response to an emergency.”

He cited the Australia situation as an example. Wildfires are taking lives and destroying thousands of homes and, by some accounts, have killed half a billion animals – and they come after what the speaker described as 20 years of resisting the reality of climate change while subsidizing the extraction of coal.

While history books will record this folly, he said, they will not record any failure of Cobourg council to react proportionately – but such a failure would be remembered by the citizens for many years to come.

“Don't be timid. Don't be shy. If it's an emergency, it's an emergency,” he said.

“I think the citizens of Cobourg will applaud if you respond as if it is an emergency.”