“As our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, our city’s buildings are critical to climate action but a huge vulnerability if we don’t act fast," reads a statement on Chow’s website. “Many of our homes, businesses and community spaces still rely on fossil fuels and they aren’t keeping us safe during extreme weather. Toronto already has over 120 premature deaths per year due to extreme heat, and in the next 25 years, we’ll have 60 days that are over 30 C each year,” the statement reads. “Most older apartments without air conditioning don’t even provide an on-site cooling space for tenants and many are overdue to replace vital service systems.”

Phil Pothen, Ontario environment program manager at Environmental Defence, says mayor-elect Chow's commitment to promote climate-friendly buildings will be an important step forward, but it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the climate benefits he hopes will be on her agenda.

The newly elected mayor is a longtime advocate for environmental protection. A video posted online shows that in 2006, Chow and her late husband Jack Layton retrofitted their home by installing solar panels and geothermal heating and cooling.

“For the past 13 years, climate action in Toronto has been obstructed by low-tax austerity budgets,” said Pothen. “Underfunding of transportation has delayed the implementation of protected cycle tracks and RapidTO transit priority lanes on major streets and has led to service cuts for the TTC at a time when we need to be growing transit ridership.”

Additionally, underfunding and understaffing of land-use planning have delayed the proactive rezoning of Toronto's low-density neigbourhoods to bring them up to sustainable densities, said Pothen. “We hope that mayor-elect Chow's commitment to allocate the necessary funds to climate action will finally break these logjams and deliver a net-zero Toronto before it is too late."

The first person of colour elected as mayor of Canada's most populous city, 66-year-old Chow attended meetings at city hall Tuesday.

She won the mayoral byelection against 101 other candidates. Her swearing-in date is yet to be announced, and the results of the election, which took place Monday, are expected to be certified by the city clerk today.
Chow is a veteran progressive politician who previously served as a member of Parliament and a city councillor. She has promised to bring change to Toronto and make it more caring, affordable and safer for everyone.

This story was produced in partnership with Journalists for Human Rights for the Afghan Journalists-in-Residence program funded by the Meta Journalism Project.