Climate Plan

Table of Contents

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The City of Aspen adopted its first Climate Action Plan in 2007, one of the earliest plans adopted in the state, as part of the Canary Initiative, a community effort to reduce the threat of climate change. It has recently been updated for 2018-2020.

Climate plans, also referred to as “climate action plans,” are an increasingly common type of specialized plan developed by local governments to address the challenges of a changing climate. They are designed to provide a strategic framework for driving local actions to assess, understand, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, identified as a root cause of climate change. Plans increasingly also include strategies to prevent or minimize the anticipated adverse effects of climate change.
One distinction in climate planning terminology is important: “mitigation” refers to the practice of reducing greenhouse gases, while “adaptation” refers to anticipating and taking action to reduce the adverse consequences of climate change, including those relating to natural hazards risks. An example of a mitigation strategy might be converting public buses to biodiesel or other alternative fuels, while an example of an adaptation strategy would be adopting a larger setback from flood-prone areas. 
 
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Similar to many other plans, the long-term effectiveness of climate plans requires the local adoption and execution of policies, actions, and programs identified in the plan, as well as measuring their success over time. Unique to climate plans, however, is the need to quantify, measure, and report progress on the reduction of greenhouse gases over a given time period as prescribed in the plan. Therefore, communities must be prepared to develop and maintain a greenhouse gas inventory or identify a source for this scientific data (such as the Colorado Climate Center, cited below).

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Source - Arina P. Habich. Plaza near Union Station, Denver, CO. In 2018, the City of Denver published the 80x50 Climate Action Plan, which calls for deep decarbonization of buildings, transportation, and electricity generation. Reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 (80x50) refers to the commitments made by signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, in order to limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. The plan includes interim targets to:

  • Reduce total community-wide greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2025, a more aggressive goal than the Paris climate accords
  • Make all new buildings net-zero by 2035
  • Achieve 100 percent renewable electricity in municipal facilities by 2025 and community-wide by 2030
  • Increase electric vehicle registrations in Denver to 30 percent by 2030.

The plan highlights key strategies in the three sectors most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions in the City: buildings, transportation and electricity generation.

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“No Regret” Policy Options

Due to the uncertainties associated with future climate change, many communities are seeking to identify and prioritize “no-regrets” approaches to their decision-making process. These include actions that can be easily justified from social, economic, and/or environmental perspectives based on current conditions and whether the impacts of climate change and natural hazard events actually occur or not. In other words, no-regrets actions are considered cost-effective now under a range of future scenarios and do not involve hard trade-offs with other policy or funding alternatives.

Climate plans establish the roadmap for how a community will address climate change through mitigation and adaptation activities. Climate plans can help assess and communicate how projected changes in climate may impact the community in social, economic, and environmental terms, and identify actionable and measureable strategies for minimizing those impacts. Other benefits include: 

  • Affirms that the community is locally engaged in the issue of global climate change.
  • Describes how climate change is expected to affect future economic and environmental conditions, including natural hazards.
  • Establishes clear goals and targets to evaluate progress over time.
  • Includes a variety of no-cost or low-cost investment opportunities along with “no regret” policy options that elected leaders can more readily support.
  • Provides an additional mechanism for implementing or advancing hazard risk reduction strategies (climate adaptation). For example, climate plans may support and/or be directly linked to actions identified in the local hazard mitigation plan, such as the replacement of aging stormwater infrastructure to better accommodate increased flows resulting from more intense rainfall events and earlier spring runoff.
  • Can complement a community’s hazard mitigation plan by helping to inform the risk assessment and mitigation strategy.

Climate plans often require technical and scientific expertise to prepare, particularly in downscaling global or regional climate model data and developing a local baseline inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. Such expertise may not be available locally and can be expensive to obtain. Other related challenges include: 

  • Climate change remains a potentially divisive issue for some stakeholders, including elected officials.
  • Uncertainty and wide ranges of potential future scenarios are inherent to any long-term climate model projections.
  • Can be challenging to implement specific actions and achieve goals without adequate funding or resources, particularly for emissions reduction.
Key Facts

Administrative Capacity

Community planner supported by experts in climate science.

Mapping

Not typically required.

Regulatory Requirements

None required, but can support plan implementation.

Policy Requirements

Statement of plan goals and targets linked to implementation plan.

Maintenance

Should be updated at a regular time interval, preferably every three to five years.

Adoption Required

Yes

Statutory Reference 

Not applicable

Associated Costs

Staff time, plus potential costs for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions, downscaling climate models or other technical work, public outreach activities, and/or consultant services.

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