Community Climate Action Plan for Squamish

The Community Climate Action Plan will guide Squamish towards a low carbon future, while at the same time recommending actions that will increase livability, resilience and prosperity. The plan will reflect the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius with significant action by 2030 as per the 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Squamish community is encouraged to participate in the development of the plan, expected to be complete by January 2020.

How to get involved

• Climate Leadership Team
• Stakeholder Workshop with industrial, commercial and institutional participants
• Public Open House and community survey - expected to launch in the coming months
• Draft Report presented to Council – anticipated January 2020

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Overview

Steps to Developing our Community Climate Action Plan

1. Quantify current greenhouse gas emissions and sources (create an inventory)
2. Determine our emissions over time if we continue without taking action
3. Identify our reduction targets
4. Identify the actions we can take to meet our targets
5. Establish an implementation and evaluation plan for the actions

Scope

The plan will consider emissions and potential actions across the community of Squamish. This includes, but is not limited to, emissions created by the District of Squamish operations (corporate emissions). Typically, community climate action plans consider most emissions that are emitted within the municipality, but not the upstream emissions. For example, gasoline that is burned within the community is included, but any emissions that were created in order to extract and refine the gasoline elsewhere are not counted.

Understanding the District’s Role in Reducing Emissions

The ability of the District to control or influence greenhouse gas emissions varies between sources of emissions and potential actions. The District has direct control or influence over some types of decisions, whereas others are determined by other levels of government and/or the individual choices of citizens.

Output

The output of the plan will be a report that describes how Squamish can meet our community emissions reduction targets including actions related to buildings, transportation, solid waste, purchasing, land use and economic development. The report will recommend how to integrate the actions into other municipal processes and will provide an implementation approach, schedule and monitoring plan.

Additional Information

Project Documents

Presentation to Committee of the Whole September 10, 2019

Related Information

Climate Emergency Resolution

Council Strategic Plan 2019-2022

Squamish 2040 Official Community Plan

Staff Contact

Dora Gunn, Sustainability Coordinator: dgunn@squamish.ca or 604.815.5048