The City of Thompson is participating in a provincial Community Led Emission Reduction (CLER) program, whose goal is to work with municipal governments to reduce GHG emissions.
Andrea Hatley presented a report about the program to the mayor and council of the city of Thompson at meeting on Jan. 18. She explained to council that the target is for municipal governments to reduce GHG emissions by 20 per cent for the municipal corporation and six per cent for the broader community below the 2003 baseline by the year 2012.
Hatley says this will be accomplished by engaging the community with projects and incentives that will help them contribute to long-term changes.
The program, which is based on the Partners for Climate Protection Five milestone Format, is made up of five modules. The first one focuses on creating baseline inventory in forecast; the second one, set reduction targets; the third milestone looks at creating an action plan with public input. The fourth milestone is about implementing an action plan and the fifth and final one revolves around monitoring and reporting, including the 2012 inventory.
Hatley says the committee is currently working on milestones one and three. She says they're using a baseline of 2003 for the first milestone. An inventory of municipal energy usage, fuel consumption, water and waste consumption is currently being compiled. Hatley says they'll also use data from Manitoba Hydro, Stittco and Manitoba Public Insurance, and a community inventory of both residential and commercial information. She says that from this data, greenhouse gas emissions can be calculated and the committee will be able to indentify the largest sources of the emissions. This, in turn, will help them to target specific areas for reduction.
For the third milestone, Hatley says the committee has started the first stage of the development of a local climate change action plan. A local advisory, made up of 15 members from different local stakeholders, has been developed to help create, implement and promote the plan. She explains that the committee's current focus is to find ways to get the public engaged on the issue and achieve public feedback on ideas the community has for cutting back on emissions.
Hatley says the committee has come up with a few ways that they think are best to reach the public and engage them in the issues. These include creating a Facebook page and a new section on the Thompson.ca website; a "one-tonne" challenge event were individuals will give their carbon footprint at the start of a four week period and maintain a daily blog of their activities, seeing if they were able to lower their footprint at the end of the challenges; a symposium or workshop in early to mid February; engaging youth with workshops; and a short, formal survey targeting areas where people congregate. Hatley also says that the committee is looking at providing a format that will be "conducive to the engagement of the 40 per cent First Nation component of the community."
