PORT ANGELES — The City Council will consider this week a climate action plan that targets carbon neutrality by 2030.
The 37-page resiliency plan includes strategies and actions for both mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
“Scientific understanding of climate change indicates that we will experience significant shifts in weather patterns over the span of a single generation, a trend that will most likely continue,” said Port Angeles Fire Chief Ken Dubuc, who served on a city planning group that prepared the climate action plan, in a memo to the council.
“Climate change poses a risk to many critical areas such as sensitive coastal ecosystems, coastal infrastructure, air quality, forest resources, water supplies and endangered species.”
City Council members will review the climate action plan and consider a resolution addressing climate change at their Wednesday meeting.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall.
“We will address climate change by adopting actions that reduce city wide greenhouse gas emissions, educating residents about climate change and setting separate benchmarks for climate adaptation and mitigation efforts,” the proposed resolution states.
“The City Council will work with regional governments, organizations and businesses in efforts to transition our local economy to carbon neutral by 2030 while ensuring that all efforts are centered in equity and respect for all community members.”
The climate action report was prepared by a Climate Action Planning Group that has met regularly since January.
A subcommittee of the city Planning Commission will continue to refine the document and forward publicly-vetted recommendations to the City Council, Dubuc said.
“The only direct cost related to this project is a $600 membership in International Council for Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI),” Dubuc said in his memo to the council.
“ICLEI membership provides tools for future research, data collection and planning activities. It is widely used as the standard for collecting greenhouse gas emissions data and a tool that both Clallam County and Jefferson County have used.”
The community-driven climate action plan, entitled “Resiliency Plan: Recommendations Addressing Climate Change for the City of Port Angeles,” makes a series of recommendations for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Mitigation involves a focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and stemming climate change through measures like energy conservation and renewable energy, Dubuc said.
Adaptation involves activities designed to reduce and minimize the harmful consequences of a warming climate.
The Climate Action Planning Group has asked the council to take action Wednesday on the following recommendations:
• Authorize a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions inventory to establish baselines for measuring progress. The task should be competed by the end of 2020.
• Integrate climate considerations more explicitly into the city’s existing planning efforts.
• Continue to emphasize a reduction in city-wide energy use by increasing public transporation and electric vehicles, developing infrastructure to promote bicycling and walking, moving towards a 100 percent clean, renewable and non-hydropower source of electricity by 2030, increasing conservation and energy efficiency in city buildings and encouraging the use of renewable energy.
The climate action plan includes map that show projected sea level rise in Port Angeles by 2050 and 2100.
The report is available on the city’s website, www.cityofpa.us.
Click on “Meetings & Agendas,” download the Nov. 6 City Council agenda packet and navigate to page 78.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
