The Squamish Chief editorial team has selected 10 top themes, events and issues for the year in our coverage. This story is one in a series of those.
Climate change has been top of mind for elected officials during this council’s first year in office and for many locals.
Over the summer, council voted unanimously in favour of declaring a climate emergency.
The resolution was drafted by councillors Jenna Stoner and Chris Pettingill after a delegation of students appeared before council at a meeting weeks before.
Leading up to that point, global student climate protests had taken hold of many major cities throughout the world.
The demonstrations also found their way to Squamish, where students picketed municipal hall and marched on the streets on several different occasions.
At the same time, a number of other municipalities and government bodies had also declared a climate emergency. Perhaps the most high-profile of these was a resolution passed by the House of Commons in Ottawa. This national declaration of a climate emergency happened in the weeks before Squamish also followed suit.
The motion calls on the District to support moving away from fossil fuels.
It asks to prioritize the transition for people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and who are most in need of assistance in converting to renewable energy.
It gave staff until the end of 2019 to create a greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan that would set interim community-wide targets in line with limiting global warming to the 1.5-C threshold outlined by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
These would be reductions of 45 per cent by 2030; 65 per cent by 2040 and 100 per cent by 2050.
To this end, the municipality has hired the Whistler Centre for Sustainability as a contractor to start drafting a greenhouse gas reduction plan.
However, the plan does have its limits.
In a meeting with council, a representative with the centre said the plan will be limited in its ability to directly address emissions from sources such as large industry, embodied energy, forestry, ocean activity and commercial, unattended fuelling stations.
If the consultant hits all its deadlines, the final plan will be presented to council in January.
The District has also selected a climate leadership team, which is expected to offer advice to the municipality on how to curb greenhouse gas emissions in town.
