It's been eight years since Vancouver adopted the goal of becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020 and that deadline is swiftly approaching.
On Thursday, the federal government announced it will be giving $22 million to help the city create an urban climate centre and while the funding isn't specifically linked to the city's goal, it's part of the federal government's plan to make communities more energy-efficient across the country.
With the money, the city will operate one of seven urban climate centres across Canada to help homes and buildings be more efficient.
Another aim of these centres is to "bridge the commercialization gap and reduce the risk of developing tomorrow's low-carbon technologies and innovations," the natural resources ministry said in a news release.
"Vancouver has always been at the leading edge of building sustainable cities, and today’s investment in low-carbon solutions is another step forward for our community that will help fight climate change, create jobs and make life more affordable," Joyce Murray, president of the treasury board and digital government minister said.
Other cities with federally-funded urban climate centres are Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto area, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax.
Some of the specific initiatives these cities could undertake include creating high-performance buildings, supporting district energy and distributed renewable energy and coming up with transportation solutions to drive down fossil fuel use.
For Vancouver, Mayor Kennedy Stewart said the city's focus would be on improving the energy efficiency in buildings.
"Vancouver city council has joined cities around the world in declaring a climate emergency to scale up climate action and limit warming to 1.5 C," he said.
"This funding investment and our leadership to develop the centre will help to develop and share new local solutions and best practices to reduce carbon emissions from buildings, which is a key priority of our climate action response."
