Climate Action Plan for the City of Cleveland

SustainableCleveland2019
The City of Cleveland Mayor’s Office of Sustainability is currently leading a community process to develop a Climate Action Plan (CAP). The CAP is crucial to implementing Mayor Jackson’s vision of making Cleveland more sustainable and addresses both the City’s internal operations as well as the broader community. The CAP will not only reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, but it will also acknowledge and plan for changes in climate that may affect all Clevelanders. The CAP is targeted for completion by July.

The CAP is not a project in isolation, but will instead build upon many other related initiatives and achievements. These include the Sustainable Communities 2019 Action and Resources Guide released in 2010 at the 2nd Annual Sustainability Summit. The Office of Sustainability has implemented a two-pronged approach to the CAP: “top-down” and “bottom-up.” The top down component identifies what is feasible and affordable from a technology standpoint. The bottom up component includes issues and energy use and management issues most relevant to Cleveland’s critical stakeholders: residents and business-owners.

As part of the climate action planning process, the Office of Sustainability has convened community stakeholders to form a Climate Action Advisory Committee (CAAC) to provide input, ideas, and feedback for the final plan. The CAAC will include various stakeholder groups to ensure the CAP addresses various community perspectives through a serious of workshops. The first workshop of the CAAC was held on October 9, 2012 and focused on overview of the climate action planning process, preliminary GHG inventory, and a brainstorm session for goals and strategies. The second workshop is scheduled for March 5, 2013, and focus on preliminary strategies that emerge from the CAAC committee meetings held in late January and early February. The committee meetings will organize around topics such as: energy efficiency and green building; waste; transportation (non-freight); land use, forestry, storm water, and flood management; advanced and renewable energy; and climate change adaptation. Cross-cutting topics will also be addressed: community engagement and education; financing; incentives and policy; economic and community development; existing best practices and case studies.

Additional information about Cleveland’s Climate Action Plan and the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability is available at www.sustainablecleveland.org/about/climate-action-plan/. Questions and comments may also be addressed to the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability at Sustainability@city.cleveland.oh.us or the Sustainable Cleveland Center at SCC@city.cleveland.oh.us.

You can also engage in an on-line discussion about the plan at The Civic Commons.

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