Climate Adaptation Strategic Plan

The City of Coquitlam will develop a Climate Adaptation Plan covering most of City assets and services. The Plan will target challenges towards developing strategic actions to mitigate identified challenges and gaps, such as:a. Community response to climate impact events;b. Increased demand for services; c. Impaired capacity to deliver the services; andd. Managerial and system challenges – to perform extraordinarily in difficult circumstances.The Strategic Plan is to identify climate related impacts to City assets and specify methods to assess risks and vulnerabilities, suggest adaptation strategies and actions required to mitigate climate vulnerabilities. Once adopted by the City Council, the Strategic Plan will remain as the blueprint for the development and implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation actions.The City does not have a comprehensive climate adaption plan at this time to protect its assets and services. The sustainability of City's assets worth billions of dollars and critical services delivered with the use of them is vulnerable to climate change impacts and an adaptation plan that will help mitigate adverse impacts is essential to ensure City residents could rely on these services. Because the impacts of climate change are widespread and affects almost all services rendered by the City, a comprehensive and community inclusive plan is necessary to deal with the complexities it may create. Such a comprehensive plan will help identify strategic action items needed by all City departments to mitigate adverse impacts and protect and maintain City assets and services, including:• Protect City’s economic interests by protecting City assets and services from adverse climate impacts such as floods,• Ensure business continuity in commercial and industrial areas by ensuring access and transportation availability;• Develop capacity to deal with increased service demands during climate impact scenarios, by pre-plan based on developed strategic plan; and• Identify environmental protection and enhancement opportunities, such as wet land preservation and utilization, GHG reduction that will yield benefits in climate adaptation mitigation options.The Strategic Plan will result in subsequent works to mitigate risks and vulnerabilities, during implementation, and these will result in economic, social and environmental benefits.