Title
Resolution to Adopt City of Ann Arbor Climate Action Plan
Memorandum
Attached for your consideration is a resolution to adopt the Ann Arbor Climate Action Plan. The Plan is a culmination of a two-year effort to first inventory community greenhouse gas emissions and to then develop potential actions to mitigate these emissions.
The City of Ann Arbor has set aggressive renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets as part of the 2006 and updated 2011 Energy Challenge. These goals include community-wide targets to reduce municipal greenhouse emissions by 50% and community-wide emissions by 8% from 2000 levels by 2015. Staff continues to seek ways to conserve energy and advance the share of renewable energy generated as a share of municipal operations. However, municipal operations account for less than 2 percent of the annual greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global climate change in Ann Arbor. The City is seeking new ways to address community-wide energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals, and the attached Climate Action Plan focuses on ways to proactively reduce our overall impact in the building, transportation, waste, and University sectors. The Plan was developed with the support of a City Council approved grant from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and represents a set of recommendations that have varying degrees of City influence but which act as a launching point to explore and evaluate innovative measures in the short, medium, and long-terms.
The Climate Action Plan brought together a committee consisting of members of the Energy, Environmental, and Planning Commissions as well as other individuals and organizations active on energy and climate in Ann Arbor, including representatives from the University of Michigan, Washtenaw County Public Health, AATA, and other organizations. A community-wide greenhouse gas emissions inventory was performed and recommendations were developed by this committee du...
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