There’s more to assessing the impact of the city declaring a climate change emergency than meets the eye, city council was informed at its meeting Monday evening.

In an 11-page administrative report presented to council, city staff outlined a number of realities council must face in considering such a declaration and direction sought under the declaration.

There is a great deal involved in assessing the impact of two climate-related but substantially different motions put forward in June by councillors Steve Roddick and Jocelyn Curteanu, the reports suggests.

It says the city does not have in place the information to make such an assessment, nor does it have the expertise as a municipal government to even put the information together.

The report suggests the city can’t just flip a switch and expect to have a carbon budget associated with every capital project.

If there was a carbon value associated with each project, it’s not clear how that value would be used assigning priority to the different projects, particularly measured against the overarching priorities council has identified for the city, the report explains.

The report suggests that implementing a system of being able to weigh each initiative, each project, to assign a carbon value that can be used to assess proposals and their impact on the city’s commitment to battle climate change will take time and money.

To manage risks arising from climate change that may impact on the city, the risks need to be understood, says the report.

While the city has identified general vulnerabilities associated with climate change, it says, there’s been no work to determine the specific impact different threats may have on infrastructure and daily operations.

“The necessary expertise/capacity is not currently available within the city’s staff component,” says the report of administration’s ability to make those determinations.

In many instances throughout administration’s report to council, there is mention of additional staff time, consulting fees and even another full-time position to fulfill the obligations contained in the motions put forward in June.

In his motion, Roddick asked his colleagues to declare a climate change emergency, and to direct administration to enhance the city’s

response to climate change.

It calls for the establishment of a climate change task force.

While disagreeing with need to declare an emergency, Curteanu put forward a subsequent motion calling for more federal support to help municipalities meet their Paris Agreement targets.

It directs administration to assess the city’s vulnerability to climate change and understand its adverse effects while managing the risks by adapting them into municipal operations, policies, plans and processes.

In June, the motions were deferred to September to provide administration with the time to assess the implications of the two motions.

They will be back before council for a vote next Monday.

Members of council spent more than an hour Monday night discussing the matter. They also asked questions of Glenda Koh, the city’s environmental co-ordinator, and Catherine Constable, the city’s manager of legislative services.

Coun. Samson Hartland asked if administration has put a cost estimate on the proposed motions.

Koh explained there were no such estimates, though staff tried to estimate what individual clauses of each motion would require and cost.

She could not, she told council, anticipate future operational costs nor costs to the capital budgets.

“A framework or model approach is required to establish a carbon budget,” the 11-page report says in response to one of the clauses. It calls for a carbon budget to be built into the city’s capital budget as a specific line item beginning next year.

“There is limited experience with carbon budgets in other Canadian municipalities,” says the report. “Most municipalities exploring carbon budgets are larger and have more capacity than the City of Whitehorse.”

To properly assess costs there need to be implementation plans, Constable said, but there are none.

Roddick said he was afraid the city was only looking at one side of the equation when assessing costs. As he did in June, he expressed concern about the cost of not doing more to confront climate change.

But as Koh and Constable explained to council, and as the report outlined, the city just doesn’t have the tools nor the background knowledge at this point to fully assess the impact of the two motions put forward.

Koh told council the city has established targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and is monitoring its progress.

She told council where the city is with regard to meeting greenhouse gases reduction targets for 2030 that were established by the Paris Agreement, and where the city needs to go.

The city knows how much the new firehall off Front Street is going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, she said.

But administration can’t quantify costs and impacts based on information the city does not have, or concepts that it has yet to explore, council heard Monday night.

Council heard that measuring reductions in greenhouse gas emissions is very different than building a carbon budget into all aspects of city operations and capital project considerations.

It was noted council can still call for more public input.

Staff suggested the ongoing review of the Official Community Plan may be an option to provide the platform for gathering additional input.