Title
Climate Action Plan Update
Report
UAC Deliverable:
Briefing only
Staff Contact:
Andy Haub, Water Resources Director
Background and Analysis:
The City of Olympia has long been involved in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from City operations. Taking a next step in 2016, the City engaged with Climate Solutions, Clean Energy Transition and the Stockholm Environment Institute to examine our community’s energy and carbon footprint and identify reduction strategies for achieving a fifty percent reduction in emissions by 2030.
Olympia is following a planning template crafted by the Global Covenant of Mayors, a worldwide organization of over 7,400 cities and local governments committed to combating climate change at a local level. The Covenant provides an ambitious timeline for enacting local actions.
Under the guidelines of the Covenant, Olympia has completed a community-wide greenhouse gas inventory as well as set targets for community-based emissions reductions. The next step is developing a climate action plan.
A climate action plan is a comprehensive roadmap for achieving greenhouse gas goals both on a community-wide level and within City operations. Olympia’s plan, scheduled to begin in early 2018, will provide goals and targets, strategies and priorities, metrics to assess progress, a community engagement plan, implementation plan, and identified budget and ongoing resources. The Plan will be loosely linked to Olympia’s ongoing sea level rise planning.
The plan is expected to cost approximately $100,000 and be completed in early 2019. Recently, Lacey and Tumwater have indicated interest in collaborating with Olympia on a regional planning approach. A regional approach may reduce the costs for each city and allow cities to jointly tackle advocacy efforts.
An energy map and carbon wedge analysis developed for our community are attached.
Financial Impact:
None at this time.
Attachments:
Energy map and carbon wedge analysis