The Regional District of Central Kootenay says it has simplified and shortened its climate change document following months of public criticism.
The draft RDCK Ideas for Climate Action Plan previously had three parts: climate actions that are required by the provincial and federal governments, actions that the RDCK is already undertaking, and new ideas not yet approved by the RDCK board.
The board, at its April 18 meeting, decided to not include the first two items and publish in the document only the new ideas list, though the other actions will continue.
They decided that, as always, new ideas must be presented to the board for approval, but now they have added the requirement that the idea be presented with a business case.
The board emphasized that the Ideas for Climate Action document is not an overall plan but a list of individual things that could each be done if the board agrees.
The board also decided that funding for climate actions should be “ideally” paid for by “polluter superfunds,” in which polluters are required to pay for clean-up initiatives.
Board chair Aimee Watson, in an interview with the Nelson Star following the meeting, said there is some work to be done on the superfunds part and that is the reason for the word “ideally.” But she said it reflects a common public concern: “Don’t just tax us out of being able to live. You should be taxing the people who are causing the problem.”
Significant actions on the list, Watson said, include mitigating floods and geohazards, which she said the RDCK has already done a lot of work on.
“When it comes down to the debate over why climate change is happening and what we should do about it, these are no-brainers because they’re physically affecting us,” Watson said. “And the more we can mitigate, the more we will at least be prepared.”
Watson said supporting farmers and irrigation infrastructure is also a significant desire on the part of the public and the board, as well as wildfire mitigation, and the ideas document contains many ideas about these.
The list in Ideas for Climate Action includes suggestions in the general areas of transportation and mobility, planning for growth, energy efficiency, supporting farmers, improving water access for farmers, protecting and conserving water, mitigating risks from floods and geohazards, wood chipping, and divestment from fossil fuel investments.
Laura Sacks of the Kootenay Climate Hub said the group applauds the RDCK for its new climate list and offered a caution about the required business cases.
“When considering the business case for new actions,” she said, “we expect they will be factoring in the high cost of not acting in response to the climate crisis we are facing.”
Paragraph three of this article was altered on April 24 to state that the climate actions the board decided not to include in the Ideas for Climate Action Plan will still be continued although they are not published in the plan.
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