Climate Change Staff - Tay Valley

The grant-funded staff person will implement initiatives that will produce a lasting improvement in municipal GHG emissions reduction. The first required phase of work is to develop a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction plan. The plan will establish a baseline GHG emissions inventory, set emissions reduction targets, and outline actions to reduce GHG emissions for municipal operations and the community in all areas of municipal activity, including energy use, transportation planning, land use, waste and water management. The second required phase of work for the grant-funded staff person is to implement operational and institutional changes that will help ensure long-term GHG emissions reduction after the grant period. The third phase of work will be to carry out the preparatory work to be able to implement climate mitigation projects and the grant-funded staff person is required to move activities from the planning stage to the implementation stage over the course of the grant period. In Year 1, the Recipient plans to:• Create an inventory of Tay Valley Township's corporate and community emissions in the base year by sectors (identify sources of data, collect data, assumptions). • Estimate the corporation and community emissions forecast for 10 years beyond 2018 (the year Tay Valley became a Partners for Climate Protection [PCP] partner).• Compare the difference between the base year and 10 year forecast using emission intensity values.• Review federal and provincial and local municipal, county, conservation authority and regional environmental NGO's Greenhouse Gas reduction targets.• Identify a proposed visionary corporate target (including the baseline year, target year and the percentage change from the baseline).• Identify a proposed visionary community target (including the baseline year, target year and the percentage change from the baseline).• Identify stakeholders and how best to communicate with them.• Select modes of communication, create materials and organize community consultation and outreach meetings ranging from one on one meetings to larger public sessions to get feedback on whether the target is too ambitious or too low, identify what the community is currently doing and planning to do, identify priority actions.• Hold public meetings to get feedback on the target and prioritize actions to achieve it and who would be responsible for achieving it alone or through partnerships. Identify what community members are willing to do.• Prepare reports to Council to keep them informed of the process and then to suggest a target.• Tay Valley Township Council adopts a municipal greenhouse gas reduction target.• Identify projects to achieve target reductions based on the consultations from Phase 2 and quantify the reduction potential.• Identify potential costs associated with the GHG reduction projects.• Identify potential funding sources including: federal, provincial foundations, crowd sourced.• Identify roles of municipal departments in undertaking the projects e.g., integrating climate change considerations into infrastructure decision-making in the Public Works department and in the Asset Management Plan prepared by the Treasurer.• Identify roles of community organizations in achieving GHG reduction projects. Formalize any partnership opportunities.• Create an implementation schedule for bringing the projects on stream to meet the target date for GHG reductions. Integrate the schedule with Lanark County and neighbouring municipalities and provincial or federal targets.• Consider augmenting the current Green Energy and Climate Change Working group with key, active stakeholders identified in Phase 2.• Formalize steps for monitoring progress (e.g., through annual reports to Council tied into the budgeting process).The Recipient intends to complete all the activities and phases in year 1.