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By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com

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How much progress is Fredericton making with its Green Matters initiative?

Fredericton officials are hoping to soon hear back from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities ­- the auditor of the capital city's figures - on whether the city is winning or losing the war to curb greenhouse gases.

"We're waiting, rather impatiently, for them to get back to us," said Alycia Morehouse, the city's climate change co-ordinator. "They know that we'd like that number."

Fredericton is a member in the federation's partners for climate change program.

A number of communities from every province have signed up for the program. They're trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent and community emissions by six per cent by 2010, in line with the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol.

Of the 15 New Brunswick communities in the program, only Fredericton has met four of five milestones after joining in June 2001.

Those milestones - both as a corporate government body and as a community - include creating a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and forecast, setting emissions reductions goals, writing a local action plan and implementing it, and measuring results.

"We are in pretty good standing nationally. In the Top 10 per cent," Morehouse said. "Since we have submitted our community action plan, we are just waiting for them to verify our numbers through their independent testing and quality control ... to ensure we're as accurate as possible."

But despite meeting most of the program's set-up criteria, Fredericton actually saw an increase in corporate greenhouse gas levels between 2000 and 2004, when municipal emissions rose 1.96 per cent.

Since 2004, the city has had record growth and millions of dollars worth of construction is now on the power grid, so it's a tough battle to curb pollution in a growing economy.

To create its first batch of figures, which include not just corporate calculations, but community emission levels, the city has had to gather and submit to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities data from NB Power, Enbridge Gas New Brunswick, propane suppliers and oil companies.

"You're looking at water, waste, street lights. It's quite onerous and we need to get all that information," Morehouse said. "There's a lot of variables in there.

"Our corporation (the city) is measured differently. We would look at our buildings, at the facilities we have, our fleet, that type of thing.

Fredericton set 2000 as its base year. The results it expects to have verified by the federation are between from 2000-04.

Those figures won't reflect what's been happening at the community level since 2007 when the city unveiled its plan to invite community support to curb energy use.

"The feedback we've received with Green Matters, and that only launched in 2007, has far exceeded our expectations. The buy-in we've gotten from the community, has been extraordinary," she said.

Neither Moncton, which joined in November of 2001, nor Saint John, which joined in May 2006, has met any of the program milestones.