Climate Action Plan preparation

CAP

Back Completed Start date: 01.11.2018 End date: 24.06.2019

ACTIVITY INFORMATION

What we did

The City of Lake Oswego Oregon is committed to addressing climate change to build a healthy, vibrant community for generations to come. In 2017, led by a small group of citizens, City Council adopted a goal to "support the creation of a Climate Action Plan based on advice from the Sustainability Advisory Board, consistent with Council policy direction." Council engaged an advisory committee consisting of several constituent groups to develop a series of proposed climate actions. After review and revision of the proposed actions, they were released for public comment in March 2018. City Council approved the actions to be incorporated into a revised Sustainability and Climate Action Plan. City staff are currently working to incorporate the actions into a revised Sustainability Action Plan for City Operations Lake Oswego desires to update its (GHG) inventory based on 2006 data. Additionally, the City recognizes the importance of quantifying the GHG reduction potential and feasibility of the actions suggested by the Citizen committee in order to move toward City goals with the highest level of efficacy. The citizen’s group attempted to quantify potential GHG reductions in their input to the City. An updated GHG inventory and calculation of projected emissions reduction based on standard protocols will ensure that actions can be consistently evaluated and tracked in the future. Finally, the City also recognizes the impact of climate change is beginning to manifest in the region in the form of severe storms, heat, wildfire, and variability in water supplies. The City wishes to map its hazards and vulnerabilities to ensure that critical assets, residents, and businesses are prepared and protected.

How we tracked

A narrative was created for delivery inclusion in the final Sustainability Action Plan for City Operations.

What we achieved

The ICLEI team provided examples of how communities similar to Lake Oswego approach climate mitigation – and reviewed existing documents related to the existing CAP and original GHG Inventory. Findings were summarized in a memo and presented to staff. ICLEI Evaluated planned vs achieved emissions reductions using The ClearPath planning module and its default reduction measure types. In addition, ICLEI developed highly flexible “user-defined” calculators to represent reduction measures of interest to the City. To conclude the analysis, ICLEI applied the Temperate software application to provide Lake Oswego with downscaled climate data to indicate the expected local climate change impacts on the community. From here, ICLEI worked with the community to conduct a vulnerability assessment. Finally, ICLEI developed a set of Implementation Strategies with outputs from ClearPath's forecasting module and the vulnerability assessment. The intent of the strategies is to convey information about the intent of each action, how to measure progress towards targets, highlight successes and identify implementation barriers that can be addressed through ICLEI membership support.