Let's Talk Home Retrofits with Walter Bauer

In February/2021, our federal government announced the Greener Homes Grant.

“The Canada Greener Homes Grant will invest $2.6 billion over 7 years to help up to 700,000 Canadian homeowners across the country improve the energy efficiency of their homes and reduce their energy bills.”

At first glance, this sounds impressive. Unfortunately, 700,000 only represents approximately 10% of Canadian detached single-family homes.

The program launched in late May/2021. As of the end of January/2022, eight months after kickoff, Greener Homes has already received 180,000 applications.

In our home, we replaced an old natural gas furnace with an all-electric heat pump. The energy audit indicated we would save 2.7 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, annually. No other retrofit action accomplishes as much.

Other selected retrofits include, switching low with high-efficiency furnaces, reducing infiltration, replacing windows and/or increasing the amount of insulation (typically in the attic.) While beneficial, these actions are less effective than a heat pump. No more than ten percent of homeowners are applying to install a heat pump.

Optimistically, we might assume an average annual saving per retrofitted household of 2 tonnes of GHG emissions. Across 700,000 homes, the Greener Homes Grant will reduce GHG emissions by 1.4 megatonnes (Mt). This calculation is corroborated by Ottawa’s statement the program “will help cut Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 1.5 megatonnes by 2027”.

According to Environment Canada, in 2019, Canadian homes added 42 megatonnes of GHG emissions. By 2028, the Greener Homes Grant will therefore only reduce GHG emissions by 3.5%. Our government has committed to GHG reductions of 40-45% by 2030.

It gets worse. The above calculation does not account for approximately 50,000 new single detached homes being built every year, each of which will contribute an average of 4 tonnes per year. These new-home emissions will exceed the reductions from the retrofits.

Not enough is being done, we are losing ground.

Let's Talk About Climate Change!

Global warming, climate change, it's on a lot of minds now, but we don't generally talk about it very much. We talk about our work, school, the hockey game, the weather, the price of food and gas, yet all of those concerns are related to what is going on with our climate.

Well in our Drawdown group, we talk about it a lot! We aim to inform ourselves, and to encourage conversations with others to talk about it, and to become aware of ways we can reduce our own emissions. We advocate for and support government action at all levels to lower greenhouse gas emissions by making the switch from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources.

One of the main ways we can bring this complex subject out in the mainstream conversation is to just talk about it in relation to all those other interests and concerns that we have.

In these pages, various members will talk about their point of view on climate change.

-Teresa Ganna

Talking about Climate Change with Walter Bauer

In Grade 4, we were asked to practice a safety drill. When the siren sounded, we were to stop what we were doing and immediately hide under our desks. We didn’t know the motive. I don’t recall feeling stressed. We just did what we were told. Years later, I learned the threat had been nuclear war. It didn’t seem to matter that the superpowers had developed enough nuclear weapons that the fallout would kill everything on the planet, including those hiding under desks, hundred times over. We now have an additional existential crisis, Climate Change. The sirens are sounding and our governments continue to ask us, young and old, to hide under our desks. The effects of Climate Change will be far worse and longer lasting than the COVID pandemic. We can debate the decision-making, but with COVID our government acted immediately. We need to do the same with Climate Change, immediately and dramatically reduced our greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of addressing the Climate Change crisis head on, our governments are offering tokenism. The banning of single use plastic for example, while important, is a token, a proverbial drop in the bucket of greenhouse gas emissions. Current policies on carbon tax, coal phase out, carbon capture and storage, zero emission vehicles, transit electrification, retrofits, are very much the same, a start but slow and not enough. Our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Our governments lack the political will to do what needs to be done. Speak out! Walter Bauer, P. Eng.