UMNB Climate Change & Energy Initiative (CCEI)

Climate Change and the reduction of GHG emissions remains a key challenge for small municipalities across Canada. In order to optimize efforts and expand participation of municipalities in producing GHG inventories and local action plans, the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick (UMNB) has gathered the support of 11 of its members to participate in a Climate Change and Energy Initiative (CCEI), where the City of Saint John has accepted to act as the lead municipality. With the expertise of QUEST Canada, a national non-profit organization that conducts research, engagement and advocacy to advance Smart Energy Communities in Canada, the CCEI will help each member realize municipal and community-wide GHG emission reductions. In terms of the PCP program, this initiative will take each municipality through Milestones 1 (creating a GHG inventory and forecast), Milestone 2 (setting emissions reductions targets), and Milestone 3 (Developing a local action plan). The CCEI will allow each municipality to produce (or update) their inventories, create action and community energy plans (CEPs), identify targets, and analyze project opportunities, costs, and benefits. Community-specific thematic maps will incorporate geospatial and energy usage information to help forecast scenarios and identify areas where conservation and efficiency measures may occur. These maps will also assess the potential for local generation of renewable energy, and the utilization of smart grid technology. This will translate into better management of energy consumption and production and reduction of energy costs and emissions. Furthermore, as part of their public consultation processes, each municipality will use the base maps as a reference to gather community input for the plans. The initiative will work with college researchers, urban planners, geospatial experts and energy generation and distribution stakeholders in order to identify targets that consider local opportunities and resources and have a marked impact on emission reductions. Ultimately, the CCEI will allow communities to identify model projects, establish green and sustainable projects that could easily be adopted, and augment skills, knowledge and expertise at local and regional levels. Municipalities will update their inventories every two years, and online tools will assist them with sharing of inventories, action plans and results. The CCEI is a direct result of UMNB members call to address climate change as a collective, and through UMNB, smaller communities have the opportunity to advance in the PCP milestone program. UMNB will hold two annual conferences during the course of consultations of the CCEI. These conferences offer an exceptional opportunity to work to advance the CCEI activities through information sharing, consultation with elected municipal officials, and further pursuit of projects identified by the Local Action Plans. UMNB will also present results of the CCEI at its annual conference in 2018. (Project description from original funding application)