City's Climate Action plan to be revealed at Council session tonight

After eight years for the Mayor and varying terms of office for the current council membership, tonight will see the delivery of the Prince Rupert Low Carbon Resilience Climate Action Plan.  

A fairly expansive document on how the next council will be addressing Climate themes.

Among the elements  from the synopois:

The program would steer the city councillors toward will be to streamline local government resources and capcacity, embed clamped actions that help to achieve comprehensive policy and cross departmental alignment and to promote climate action alongside other community development priorities such as economy, health, equity and biodiversity.

The  project stated as one which will build on climate commitments in the City of Prince Rupert's 2021 Official Community Plan, which specifically identifies the objective to develop a plan for climage change adaptation.

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The starting point towards the City's climate ambitions will come through a request to apply for grant funding from UBCM towards the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund and it's Disaster Risk Reduction adaptation program.

The main thrust of the city'a application is explained in the Project Area portion of their application:

This project will build on climate commitments in the City of Prince Rupert's 2021 Official Community Plan. These commitments include a delegated section of our OCP towards Climate Change and GHG Emissions, starting on page 62, which specifically identifies the objective to develop a plan for climate change adaptation, like that currently being applied for. 

The OCP also includes commitment to 80% GHG reduction of 2008 levels by 2050. In addition, the OCP outlines objectives for preservation and enhancement of natural environments, opportunities to include energy efficiency targets in Development Permit Area Guidelines, alignment of subdivision and development regulations towards GHG reduction targets (i.e. amenity contributions that are climate conscious, such as bike repair stations), the need to review existing and proposed building assets and City vehicle fleets for GHG reduction opportunities, reduce minimum parking requirements, among other policy changes. 

The OCP also notes the need to preserve and enhance natural environments and ensure development occurs outside of hazardous and environmentally sensitive areas. Implementation of many of these identified policy objectives is now occurring, however a defined Low Carbon Resilience Plan will provide a fulsome policy guideline and roadmap for continued implementation.

You can review the full scope of the Report and the Application for grant funding from the Agenda for tonight' s Council session starting on page 22 .

Council members will have some opportunity tonight for a few last thoughts on their work on climate invites prior to the election this month. 

For Mayor Lee Brain and Councillor Blair Mirau the period for reflection one which will make for their farewell of sorts to the theme for now, that as they prepare to depart from office with the results of October 15th.

More notes on tonight's Council session can be reviewed here.