Climate Action and Energy Plan Project

We are embarking on an exciting project that will help guide the future of land use, local economy, energy use and emissions production in our community. The Climate Action and Energy Plan will help North Cowichan lower its environmental impacts while improving the local economy and generate better quality of life for residents and visitors. Check out these pages for project news and info:

Public Events - Info on your chance to get involved.
Interactive Forum! - Submit ideas, vote on others' ideas, leave your thoughts.
Project News - The latest project developments.
Project Overview - The major events and time line.
Project Team - A look at Sustainability Solutions Group.
Climate Change and North Cowichan - North Cowichan's Climate Change page.

Tell us: What Will it Take?

North Cowichan intends to address our community's climate impacts and energy use - with your help. We want to hear from the citizens of North Cowichan. What are the ideas and actions, big and small, that will lead us to a low impact, sustainable future? You have the ideas that will help North Cowichan be a leader in sustainability. Workshops and online engagement are your opportunity to tell us what needs to be done and how we're going to do it.Check out the amazing interactive forum! Leave your ideas for sustainability, climate change adaptation and green economy actions here. You can also comment on people's suggestions, vote for what you like or dislike.

The Project

The Climate Action and Energy Plan (CAEP) is underway for the next 9 months, ending in August, 2012. The CAEP will take inventory of our community’s existing energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while identifying future trends based on population, land-use, technology and other factors. The CAEP identifies opportunities to reduce energy consumption and emissions through community actions, policy and other municipal mechanisms. Determining the social, environmental and economic impacts of the proposed emissions and energy actions will help us determine which actions to take.

Goals

The overall goals of the project are to create a plan that, when put into action:
1. Achieves carbon neutrality as soon as possible.
2. Achieves a 33% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020.
3. Sequesters more carbon than we produce.

More specific goals will be developed with the help of stakeholder committees and public input.