Grey Highlands council is considering $24,000 in funding to begin tackling climate change in its 2022 budget.
The proposed funding, which has yet to be ratified by council, will be used to perform a municipal greenhouse gas emissions inventory as part of the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program run by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).
Participating municipalities go through a five-step process that involves taking stock of local emissions sources and future projections, and developing and implementing a local action plan to address climate concerns.
Grey Highlands council voted to participate in the PCP program in December 2020, after declaring a climate emergency in June 2019.
The municipality is yet to complete step one of the program, which involves a local emissions inventory and a ten-year projection of emissions under a business-as-usual scenario.
Councillor Danielle Valiquette suggested tendering a contract to perform the research at budget deliberations Nov. 29.
“I think now it's time that this council put serious focus on climate action, and that will require some sort of financial investment from this table,” she said.
“What I would suggest is that this council look at a contract individual to come in and begin to create the baseline emissions inventory and forecast.”
Councillor Cathy Little voiced support for completing step one of the program as well.
“I think aligning with FCM and the PCP program is really the way to go,” she said. “It's very structured and fact-based, and doing an inventory lets us know where we're at and where we need to be and how to get there.”
Valiquette initially proposed a $12k contract for the research, but council had concerns that it might not be enough money to get the job done.
“A lot of the information that step one is doing is actually taking information that we already have and consolidating it,” Valiquette said. “This person needs to know more about Excel than they do climate action, in my opinion, so that was where my lower price tag came [from].”
Little suggested setting aside $24,000, of which $12,000 would come from the tax levy, amounting to a 0.1 per cent tax increase, and $12,000 from the municipality’s capital reserves.
“What I’m suggesting is that we put the necessary resources into this to do a good job of it,” she said.
The 2022 budget is still in draft form and has yet to be ratified by council.
Budget deliberations continue on Dec. 2, and a council meeting will be held on Dec. 6 to ratify the budget.
Budget documents and the deliberation schedule may be found here.
