“We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it.”
— Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington
The following action plan will help you get started (or continue) on your climate action journey. It’s free!
Click this link or scan the QR code below to complete it online and have the results emailed to you for reference.
Join the community to get support and resources, share experience, and provide input and expertise.
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in touch and get more information about progress, innovations, responses to barriers, and more!
The plans in this site are designed to help people meaningfully participate in the transition that is mitigating climate change, whether you use a calculator or not.
They are informed primarily by the household emissions breakdown in Canada as this identifies areas within people’s control and aligns to Canada’s Net Zero 2050 and interim 2030 reduction plan (which targets the 1.5–2°C goal.)
However, you may also want to check out a carbon calculator to see how you compare to the average and to estimate the impact of specific reductions. This is not necessary to get started and make a plan but if it is of interest, I’ve included some options below.
When using carbon calculators and detailed Carbon Footprint information consider the following:
They cannot…
They can…
• They can’t easily account for relevant local factors such as how clean your electricity is or how local or sustainable your food is, which can, in some cases have a large impact on your footprint.
• They can provide an approximation of your footprint and the relative impact of “big rock” changes. They can help you prioritize some key areas that may be relevant for you and help you flag areas you want to start with or work towards.
• They cannot provide detailed, activity level accounting of your footprint.
• They can provide information about the carbon footprint of specific activities and products which can raise your level of awareness about relative impacts and sources of emissions.
• They cannot account for the full positive impact you are making as you transition to clean energy and low/no carbon prosperity.
There are many direct and indirect ways you will drive the required systemic change even if you are focused on your own footprint. One action can have multiple positive effects.
• They can give you confidence in the plan that you make through this site because the areas to address and their relative impacts will be consistent between the calculators and Canada’s climate action plan that this site relies on.
Canadian examples:
Note: many other Carbon Footprint calculators are available that are based on US or UK data. They can give you a high-level picture but are not as accurate for Canadians.
These sources give you a sense of the detailed carbon footprints of products and activities (based on US and UK data but still informative):
• Significantly reduce your own fossil fuel use, in part by shifting from greenhouse gas energy to clean energy.
• Support systemic and societal change towards the phaseout of greenhouse gas pollution.
• Shift behaviour and habits to align with a sustainable, prosperous, abundant, low/no carbon world.
• Support the systemic/societal change towards sustainable, affordable prosperity.
Within these areas, there is a ton of freedom to choose a personal path that suits you.
Appropriate — relevant for me and my family.
Feasible — fits with my time and money considerations.
Aligned to values/goals — prioritizes alignment with other things I care about.
Flexible — allows me to grow into and/or change my plan over time.
Motivating — gives me confidence that I am actually making a positive impact.
Addressing global warming is not really about values any more than grabbing a fire extinguisher to put out a fire is. But climate action likely intersects with other things you may care about, including your social and economic values and other environmental issues.
The cost of living is already being impacted by climate change.
The Canadian Climate Institute estimates in a 2023 report, that climate change increases the average household’s cost of living by about $700, because of supply-chain disruptions (and consequent impact on grocery bills, for example), rising insurance costs and tax hikes to pay for disaster recovery and infrastructure repairs.
The annual cost of disasters is now in the billions and will only increase over time as climate change increases the frequency, likelihood and/or severity of extreme weather events and climate change related disasters. Climate change is also expected to increase costs due to impacts on food systems, other ecosystem services, worker productivity, business supply chains and health.
Adaptation and mitigation costs will also increase as global warming gets worse and as previous strategies to address and withstand climate change are no longer sufficient, requiring us to rely on more costly strategies.
Climate costs are real and are already being incorporated into insurance coverage analyses and Central Bank planning for its inflationary pressures. Although the energy transition also comes with inflationary risks, a delayed and abrupt future transition is riskier to the economy than a steady managed transition today.
A note about taxes: Although the Canadian carbon tax has decreased in popularity, putting a price on carbon pollution is a mechanism used in many countries to help shift behaviour and give individuals and businesses confidence in making clean energy investments.
In Canada, 90% of the tax goes back to individuals through a rebate and the other 10% goes to businesses and schools to help them transition as well. For many Canadians, there is no impact at all. The link below has a helpful calculator that shows the impact of the carbon tax on your household. Research shows that the tax is not a significant driver of the increased cost of living we have recently experienced, despite the political exploitation of this argument.
If you care about cost of living, inflation and taxes, you care about climate change and you can support government efforts to shift societal behaviour with your vote and voice.
Affordable housing intersects with climate action in a number of ways.
There is strong alignment between developing affordable housing and taking climate action. For example:
• Smaller homes have a smaller Carbon Footprint and use less energy.
• Energy efficient homes emit lower amounts of greenhouse gases and save homeowners/tenants money.
There is also a massive opportunity to address the housing crisis and tackle climate change simultaneously by considering the following:
• Retrofitting urban buildings instead of building new avoids the Carbon Footprint of new building materials.
• Retrofitting buildings for increased efficiency reduces the building’s Carbon Footprint and energy costs.
• Promoting high density living supports the development of clean public transit, active transportation, and the protection of surrounding greenbelt and agricultural land.
• Using efficient electric space heating/cooling options in new urban and suburban homes reduces the building’s Carbon Footprint and energy costs and also avoids the cost and emissions of locked in new natural gas which can commit us to fossil fuels in the long term and/or increase the costs of transition when gas is inevitably replaced with clean energy.
• Sustainable urban planning can increase access to amenities within walking distance and encourage active and public transportation.
Home insurance: Climate change also increases home costs by increasing home insurance costs and decreasing coverage. This also increases risks to the housing market in impacted areas.
If you care about affordable housing, you care about climate change and you can take both personal and systemic action to help address the issues above.
The impacts of climate change on health are pervasive.
According to the World Health Organization, the annual global direct costs to health — not including health-related impacts on agriculture, water, and sanitation — will be between $2 and 4 billion by 2030. Areas with weak health infrastructure will be impacted the most.
More frequent and severe weather and climate events such as storms, extreme heat, floods, droughts and wildfires increase the risk of death, health emergencies, noncommunicable diseases and infectious diseases. Disasters pose risks to health infrastructure, delivery systems and work forces.
Climate change also poses risks to the economic and social determinants of physical and mental health including clean air, clean and accessible water, healthy soils, and food systems (including both food security/availability and food quality/nutrition) and livelihoods.
In addition, there are inequities among people with respect to the impacts of climate change on health. Certain communities and certain groups of people are more vulnerable and at higher risk to the health impacts of climate change.
For example, certain existing health conditions can make people more affected by climate events — e.g. people with diabetes are more at risk in an extreme heat event. People that work outdoors may be more at risk for heat stress.
Others may have greater difficulty accessing care or emergency assistance during a disaster. Socioeconomic factors may also make certain groups less able to withstand climate impacts, or recover from them.
Learn more about the impacts of climate change on health in Canada through the resources below:
Consider supporting or promoting the following organizations working at the intersection between healthcare and climate action:
Climate change poses both physical climate risks (risks from climate disasters and a changing climate) and transition risks (shifting to a clean economy) for a number of sectors of the economy including fishing, tourism, agriculture, forestry, energy and mining.
It also poses risks to the economies of communities that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change including northern and coastal communities, and communities in areas prone to wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters. Collective impacts pose a risk to the overall economy and our GDP.
Implementing climate mitigation and climate adaptation measures as soon as possible is critical to minimizing the impacts of climate change on the economy. Climate action and the energy transition also provide a massive opportunity for the creation of jobs and competitive advantage for Canada (whereas inaction can mean we will be left behind as other countries develop the innovation, skills and capacity to deliver the emerging clean economy technologies.)
Finally, a managed and just transition will ensure that the hardworking Canadians in sectors negatively impacted by the transition are supported in finding new employment opportunities.
If a healthy economy or if the impacted economic sectors are important to you, you care about climate change.
From local to global scales there are intersections between climate change and social inequality.
Globally, climate change and poverty are intrinsically linked. The world’s poorest countries experience the worst impacts of climate change but have contributed the least to the problem.
This is in part because they are in more tropical regions, have large populations in cities including in low lying coastal regions, and/or have large populations working in agriculture which is also susceptible to climate change.
Not only are they more likely to experience extreme weather events, flooding, and drought, they are also the least equipped to adapt (e.g. their homes and infrastructure may be less able to withstand extreme weather events, they may not be able to easily migrate to areas with less food/water scarcity) and they are less able to recover from loss and damage (e.g. they may not have the means to replace lost assets, and may lack insurance or government support).
If displaced entirely, they may be pushed into a worse economic situation from which they cannot recover (see migration below.) Vulnerable populations are also less able to cope with climate-related impacts on food prices, inflation, and health in some cases.
Climate change exacerbates inequality. In fact, it is anticipated that over 100 million people may fall back into extreme poverty in less than a decade as a result of the climate crisis, reversing the global progress on eradicating extreme poverty. It is impossible to do justice to this critically important subject in a paragraph but there are of course, a ton of resources to explore and ways to help.
Climate change also impacts unhoused people everywhere as they are more exposed to extreme weather events including heat waves and storms and other climate impacts such as air pollution.
If you care about global poverty and inequality, you care about climate change, and similarly when we act on climate we are also acting to ameliorate social inequality and poverty or at least increase the protection of vulnerable populations from the impacts of climate change.
Climate change compromises air quality through increased air pollution — e.g. from black carbon, poor air quality spikes during extreme heat events, and wildfire smoke.
Air pollution is linked to disease, increased hospitalizations, and premature deaths, particularly in children, elderly people, immunocompromised individuals, and people with cardiovascular health conditions.
According to the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, air pollution causes 15,000 premature deaths per year in Canada and about 20% of cardiovascular disease deaths globally. The World Bank states that air pollution, primarily fine air particulates or aerosols, is the world’s leading environmental cause of illness and premature death, responsible for 6.4 million deaths per year, with 95% of those deaths in developing countries.
According to the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, air pollution causes 15,000 premature deaths per year in Canada and about 20% of cardiovascular disease deaths globally. The World Bank states that air pollution, primarily fine air particulates or aerosols, is the world’s leading environmental cause of illness and premature death, responsible for 6.4 million deaths per year, with 95% of those deaths in developing countries.
There is a strong interconnection between particulate air pollution and climate change because they often come from the same sources, for example coal and diesel exhaust.
In addition, air quality is compromised by wildfire smoke and global warming increases ground level ozone and airborne pollen and spore counts that can exacerbate asthma, particularly in children.
Extreme heat makes the impacts of air pollution worse in vulnerable individuals. Fossil fuels thus adversely impact air quality both directly and indirectly. There is a strong synergistic effect of tackling air pollution and mitigating climate change.
If you care about air pollution and its health-related effects, you care about climate change.
Agriculture contributes approximately 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada so it is an important area of focus for emissions reduction.
At a high level, on broad timescales, climate change may increase the productivity and productive area of Canadian farms, however some of the current farming regions and crops may not be as suitable for farming in future and on more local space and time scales climate change will bring unpredictability in weather and an increase in climate events.
Agriculture is a sector that is highly impacted by heat waves, droughts, heavy precipitation, heavy winds, floods, severe storms, and pest infestations — so it is at high risk from the increase in likelihood, frequency, and severity of disasters and other climate risks brought on by human-induced global warming.
This impacts farmers directly of course, but also all Canadians as it is reflected in the price and availability of our food and our GDP from food exports.
Current solutions and supports are sometimes problematic and the pain is in the details. For example, increased irrigation needs in response to drought competes with other water needs — e.g. hydropower; heavy precipitation can necessitate additional energy-intensive drying processes which increases emissions; crop insurance, which is designed for occasional use will become more expensive with increasing climate risk.
Agriculture is also an important part of the solution to the climate crisis because plants and soils sequester carbon. (Regenerative agriculture, which focuses on soil and ecosystem health, reduced carbon intensive inputs and long-term storage of carbon underground, is a key climate solution.)
Farmers need government support to adapt to a warmer climate, recoup losses from climate events and to transition to low carbon/high carbon sequestration food production practices, particularly given their low profit margins and decreasing predictability of weather due to climate change.
Suffice it to say though that if you care about Canadian farmers and the agricultural industry, you care about climate change.
Of course, the impacts of climate change are felt by farmers all across the globe and our food systems are highly globalized. Many farmers in developing countries are experiencing far more serious climate risks than we are in Canada (see poverty and social inequality above.)
And there are specific risks to foods that are staples in many Canadian kitchens. Climate change poses particular risks to many crops, including coffee, cocoa, olive oil, wines from some regions, and others.
Other foods contribute disproportionately to the crisis (Amazon raised cattle, unsustainable palm oil, unsustainable shrimp etc.) See more in Areas of Action — Your Food.
There are also other ways personal climate action can be synergistic with other social causes that are covered within the areas of action in this site.
For example, local programs to address food waste can also support those vulnerable to food insecurity. Sustainable fashion choices also avoid exploitation of garment workers and can promote gender equality. Electrification can improve local air quality in urban areas and indoor environments.
Deepen your connection to your reasons for action and incorporate them into your personal plan and use your vote to address climate change in part because it impacts other voter issues you care about too.
.svg){kind=logo}
icon and select “Add to Homescreen”
