{"id":26807,"date":"2020-06-18T19:22:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T23:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26807"},"modified":"2020-06-18T19:23:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T23:23:04","slug":"climate-change-adaptation-plan-moves-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/climate-change-adaptation-plan-moves-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change Adaptation Plan moves forward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora is moving forward with a plan to address and\nmitigate the fallout from climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council is set to move forward with the development of a\npreviously-budgeted $100,000 report this month that will look into climate\nchange mitigation measures, primarily through a Community Energy Plan, aimed at\nreducing the causes of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdaptation measures are currently not being addressed by\nthe Town,\u201d said Natalie Kehle, Energy and Climate Change Analyst for the Town\nof Aurora. \u201cAn adaptation plan aims to reduce the risks of damage and harm to\npeople, infrastructure and the environment from more extreme weather events by\nmaking adjustments to design and operational practices. Determining these\nadaptive measures is a mandatory planning requirement by the Province of\nOntario.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMitigation measures reduce the emissions of harmful\ngreenhouse gases that cause climate change. On the other hand, adaptation\nmeasures prepare societies for changing climate to avoid damages or harm \u2013 for\nexample, increasing the size of stormwater culverts to reducing the risk of\nflooding due to more frequent and extreme rainfall events.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should the decision made at last week\u2019s General Committee\nmeeting be ratified by Council at the end of this month, a consultant will be\nretained to develop an adaptation plan for Town-owned infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This plan will include a review of local climate data and\nclimate projections to understand the \u201cnature, severity and probability\u201d of\nfuture climate changes in Aurora; outline the Town\u2019s vulnerability to extreme\nweather events and impacts to public infrastructure; identify risks and\nopportunities to public infrastructure and estimate the anticipated costs that\ncould arise from damages or service disruptions; prioritize risks and\nopportunities and determine the adaptation measures required to increase\nresiliency; and \u201cintegrate a climate lens\u201d into Town decision-making that will\ninform municipal staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consultant will also be tasked with developing a\nTown-wide strategic plan that prioritizes climate change measures based on\n\u201curgency, return on investment and risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe plan will summarize and prioritize climate change\nmeasures that were identified from past projects and projects underway,\u201d said\nKehle. \u201cIt will also integrate necessary Town actions that address climate\nchange identified by Town partners such as the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation\nAuthority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In laying the foundation for a Climate Change Adaptation\nPlan during last year\u2019s budget process, Council initially earmarked $200,000 to\nbring the project to completion. Since that time, many municipalities have\nmoved forward with plans of their own at that price range and now that the Town\nof Aurora has the ability to build off of the groundwork laid by others, staff\nbelieve this cost could now be slashed in half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInitially, we had come up with a budget of $200,000\nbased on our benchmarking with other municipalities who have done a similar\ntype of climate change plan,\u201d said David Waters, Director of Planning for the\nTown of Aurora. \u201cWhat we\u2019re hoping for is we can harvest a lot of what the\nRegion has done through their climate change plan and reduce the cost by about\n50 per cent, which is about $100,000. \nThere are a lot of these [studies] being prepared now because they are\npart of Provincial policy. They are required as input into your asset\nmanagement plan. We\u2019re hoping to take advantage of economies of scale whereby\nthe plan is very popular now and we can hopefully use that to reduce the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was welcome news to Council members last week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am really happy to see this come forward and it is\nreally exciting,\u201d said Councillor Rachel Gilliland. \u201cI am also really excited\nto know that the budget is a lot less than we had anticipated. The expectations\nare outlined [in the report] and I am really looking forward to the next steps\nmoving forward. It is really, really positive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Mayor Mrakas, encouraging members of Council and the public alike to read the Region\u2019s Climate Change report, \u201cIt is a very extensive and detailed plan and I would like to thank Councillor Thompson for the suggestion during Budget that we hold off and wait for that Regional plan to be developed. At first blush now, it has saved us 50 per cent of the money.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora is moving forward with a plan to address and mitigate the fallout from climate change. Council is set to move forward with the development of a previously-budgeted $100,000 report this month that will look into climate change mitigation measures, primarily through a Community Energy Plan, aimed at reducing the causes of climate change. \u201cAdaptation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Yn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 17:45:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}