Most would agree that the biggest monster is climate change. If Vancouver is to be a leader in greening tech. and practices it would do well to show in a practical way what can be done now.
On a massive scale, start installing solar hot water systems. Use economy scale to bring down the cost. Make it simple and share the knowledge with the rest of the world. Do a similar thing with car conversions. Pick a 100 different model autos, convert them, and post the process on a web page. Translate the findings to a dozen different languages and try to build momentum. Basically, renovate homes and cars and plug the carbon holes.