Airport pollution not included

Council’s declaration of a climate emergency apparently doesn’t extend to the operations of the city-owned airport. 

Image Source: Hamilton Economic Development, 2010. Flickr.com.

Council’s declaration of a climate emergency apparently doesn’t extend to the operations of the city-owned airport. The unanimous late March climate declaration featured a commitment to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, but councillors don’t appear to be on the same page on what that means.

Last week a narrow majority blocked discussion of a modest emission reduction proposal by new councillor JP Danko directed at the private operators of Mt Hope airport. He wanted city officials to include in ongoing lease negotiations with Tradeport International.

Danko crafted a motion last month citing the climate emergency and seeking a commitment from Tradeport to adopt the international Airport Carbon Accreditation Program “with the goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions before 2050”. The accreditation program has already been embraced at Pearson Airport in Toronto and by at least one of the other airports managed by the company that owns Tradeport.

Air travel is a large and rapidly growing source of the carbon pollution that is the main cause of global heating, but its international character has so far allowed it to escape climate-related regulations including fuel taxes. Its emissions were not even counted in the Paris Climate Accord in 2015. The carbon accreditation program is voluntary and is only applied to ground-based operations at participating airports, not to the much more significant emissions coming from flights to and from the facilities.

Danko’s motion was presented to a meeting of the city’s airport sub-committee in late June but was turned down in an unrecorded vote. Sub-committee meetings are not video-recorded but their decisions go before standing committees of council before being ratified.

When the sub-committee report was presented to the general issues committee that includes all members of council, Danko asked that his motion be added to the discussion but was blocked from doing so by six councillors of the eleven present. Danko got support from councillors Wilson, Nann, Collins and Farr, but Ferguson, Johnson, Partridge, Pauls, Pearson and Jackson opposed holding the discussion.

Earlier in the meeting an Environment Hamilton representative urged support for the Danko proposal. Dave Carson called it “a golden opportunity” to advance council’s climate emergency efforts. He reviewed the ten year history of the accreditation program and noted that “275 airports around the world have signed up.”

The accreditation program was created in 2009 by an airport trade association and Carson noted that “Hamilton is a member of the trade association”. Fourteen Canadian airports are enrolled including Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Quebec, Regina, Victoria, Winnipeg and Halifax.

“I was pretty stunned when I looked at this list because only Calgary and Hamilton are not on it,” noted Carson. “This is an early opportunity for council to show that it’s serious about acting on its declaration.”

At the same meeting, councillors received an email from airport manager Cathy Puckering that had been sent to some city officials the day before and was forwarded by Lloyd Ferguson. It outlined actions “related to climate change and corporate social responsibility” currently underway at the Mt Hope facility.

“In 2017 we established our baseline year and the goal of reducing our total carbon-dioxide equivalent by 20 percent by 2027,” wrote Puckering. She reported “a 7.5 percent reduction in emissions based on intensity” by the end of last year and argued that “Hamilton International is on track to reduce their emissions intensity value by 20 percent by 2027.”

Her email listed “2017-2019 activities [as] LED lighting in the vehicle parking areas; Energy efficient air-conditioning units in the air terminal building;  Lighting sensors in the air terminal building;  [and] Airfield Lighting LED project (2019-2021)”. 

Reductions in emission intensity don’t necessarily result in less pollution because they are measured against units of activity. So growth in the airport’s activity may mean total emissions increase at the same time as emissions per unit are falling.