The District of Squamish officially has a blueprint to put it on the path to carbon neutrality, though it won't quite hit the mark.
After previously being presented to council, several changes were made to the Community Climate Action Plan, and elected officials recently gave it their stamp of approval.
Squamish council ordered staff to create the plan after the municipality declared a climate emergency in July 2019. This document outlines ways in which the town can cut its carbon footprint in line with the targets outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
To achieve the IPCC's goal, greenhouse gas emissions need to decrease by approximately 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.
However, the Squamish plan acknowledges that these goals might be a little too ambitious in the present moment, and says it aims for hitting a 2030 intermediate target instead.
"Actions in the [Community Climate Action Plan] are largely focused on efforts to achieve the 2030 targets rather than future years, as there is so much uncertainty as to what may be feasible from a technological, regulatory, political and/or social perspective past 2030," reads a staff report. "The plan, therefore, does not come close to achieving the 2050 target."
The plan assumes, however, that it will be continually updated as new technologies and policies come into play.
To hit the intermediate target, the blueprint calls for shaving off 38,300 tonnes of CO2-equivalent off the anticipated 93,600 tonnes that will be emitted in 2030.
The 93,600-tonne estimate is a projection of the town's emissions that year, should the municipality fail to act on its climate plan in any way.
However, hitting that goal still leaves the town 6,200 tonnes shy of its 2030 goal. This is a 7% shortfall from the reduction target of 45% by 2030.
Again, as a result, the plan will have to be continually updated as better methods arise.
Councillors voted unanimously in favour of approving this revised draft of the plan on April 7.
"To me, this plan is really, really important. It shows us what actions you can take to achieve the goals that council set out in our climate emergency. We know that it won't be easy, but this is what gives us the roadmap of where we can go," said Coun. Jenna Stoner.
"I want to address some of the criticism in the community about having brought on a consultant to do this work, and the tendency for council to bring on consultants to inform some of our policy work. But I think that this really demonstrates how important it is to have data-informed decision-making and doing this type of work was really critical to give us a foundation to show us what those next steps are."
The District contracted help from the Whistler Centre for Sustainability to develop the plan.
Several key changes to this final draft were outlined to council by the municipality's manager of sustainability and climate change, Ian Picketts.
First, the plan updated the out-of-scope emissions highlighted in the document. These refer to emissions that aren't within the plan's grasp, yet are still contributing to the town's carbon footprint.
These include items like heavy industry emissions and embodied carbon, which refers to all the carbon emissions that go into producing a product, including emissions from things like transportation.
Such emissions aren't included as part of the plan because staff said there aren't yet any reliable ways to track them, and also because the District has little or no control over those areas.
However, as part of a revision to the draft, staff updated the document to show a bigger picture of the type of emissions that won't be addressed by the plan.
One of the big updates to the document's out-of-scope emissions chart is that it shows the anticipated effects of Woodfibre LNG's liquefied natural gas plant will be larger than portrayed in the first draft. This is due to its use of electricity during operation, Picketts said.
There's no estimated measurement for the impact of the accompanying FortisBC compressor station, but there are references to it in the document stating it should be a consideration, Picketts said.
There was also a rough assessment of emissions from things like buried wood waste, which are expected to be a significant contributor to the carbon footprint, yet are hard or impossible to measure at this point.
He said the next major change involves one of the six "big moves" outlined in the plan. These are goals spelled out by the document that would help the municipality reach carbon reduction.
One of those moves called for the municipality to move beyond the car. This recommendation has been rephrased in this latest draft.
"We've adjusted the projected outcome to a doubling of transit and active transportation trips. So we feel very good that this is a much better frame-projected outcome, although we do acknowledge it is not numerically different," said Picketts.
Previously, in the first draft, this action was phrased as a 15% reduction of personal vehicle trips.
A staff report, however, says doubling of transit and active transportation trips correlates to a 15% decrease in personal vehicle trips.
"We recognize a 15% reduction of vehicle trips or a doubling of active transport and transit is quite ambitious compared to what other communities are proposing," Picketts said.
Actions
There were also changes made to "actions" within the plan. These actions are intended to be the smaller steps that are taken to achieve the big moves outlined by the plan.
One of them has been tweaked. It now calls for the District to review how to increase frequency on the core transit network during peak times. This could take the form of adding buses more often during rush hours.
"This action does not specify a particular frequency but commits the District to exploring how frequency can be increased," reads the staff report.
Picketts said in his presentation that staff were hesitant to commit to a hard number at this point, as there are still several things to be worked out.
For example, he said, decreasing bus wait times from every 15 to 10 minutes might dramatically increase costs while yielding only diminishing returns.
Among other things, staff also added a new action that would develop a scoring system to evaluate rezoning applications.
The report says that this system will be based on walkability to basic necessities such as transit, employment, neighbourhood commercial, and greenspace.
