Prince Edward County has completed the first milestone of the Partnership for Climate Change Protection program.
The first milestone involves taking inventory of the municipality’s greenhouse gas emissions and forecasting future emissions. This is intended to inform future plans for emissions reduction.
Prince Edward County Committee of the Whole received a presentation from staff detailing the municipality’s green house gas emissions during Thursday’s meeting. Greenhouse gas emissions were shown to decrease in 2019 and 2020, though they increased in 2021 and 2022 as COVID restrictions were lifted.
Emissions levels in 2022 were still lower than 2018 levels despite the increase in emissions post-COVID.
Councillor Kate McNaughton was impressed with how thorough the study of Prince Edward County’s emissions was.
“This isn’t just a great win in our first step, but it’s also a great example of that cross-departmental collaboration that we’re seeing now,” said Councillor McNaughton. “We’re seeing it now, and we’re seeing a really great coming together of wonderful staff members from different departments, really putting passion and energy into solving big problems.”
Plans are already underway to set emissions reductions targets in order to meet milestone two, with staff preparing a report on those targets to be presented to council in fall.
Once the targets are set, milestone three will require a plan to be developed to meet those goals.
