Lunenburg takes action on climate change

In 2019, the council of the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg declared a climate emergency. What does that mean?

It means the municipality is committed to taking action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

We passed a resolution to join the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program and work through the five milestones at the corporate and community level. We also passed a motion to form a Sustainability Committee and added “climate emergency” as a priority in our strategic plan.

The PCP program aims to provide municipal governments with the support required to identify and address local sources of GHG. Guided by a five-milestone framework, we’ll work to set reduction targets, develop and carry out local climate change action plans, and monitor results.

The five milestones are: 1. Create a baseline emissions

inventory and forecast 2. Set emissions reduction

targets

3. Develop a local action plan 4. Implement the local action

plan

5. Monitor progress and report results

There are two separate parts to the five-milestone framework: corporate and community.

Corporate emissions include municipal fleet vehicles, wastewater infrastructure, municipally owned buildings and any other emissions under control of municipal operations.

Community emissions includes all other energy use within the municipality including utilities, solid waste management, transportation, space heating and cooling in all homes and buildings, as well as all energy use from appliances like generators and refrigerators.

For the community part of the action plan to be successful, the community needs to be deeply engaged in the process. A new Sustainability Committee has been created to lead the municipality and public through the community milestones. Council will incorporate the advice and recommendations from this community committee into the decisions to the maximum extent possible.

For the corporate part, the municipality has met milestone 2 by setting a GHG emissions reduction target. The reduction will use the municipality’s 2019 GHG inventory as the baseline year from where GHG emission reductions will be measured. The GHG reduction target of 40 per cent by 2030 will ensure that MODL is doing its part to help limit warming.

This target provides a tangible goal that we can work toward through the development and implementation of local plans and policies. Some of the actions the municipality plans to take to reach this include transitioning municipal vehicles to electric vehicles, adding solar power to the municipal services building and other municipal buildings, and retrofitting older buildings to electric or geothermal heating where possible.

Climate change is affecting our communities, and MODL must take a leadership role to address this crisis.

CAROLYN’S CORNER

Carolyn Bolivar-getson is the mayor of the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg.