The Municipality of Jasper will be developing an action plan aiming to enhance its resilience against changing climate.
Council directed administration at its Tuesday (Aug. 27) meeting to proceed with developing a five-year climate change adaptation action plan with internal resources. Once completed, administration will present the plan at a committee of the whole meeting in spring 2025.
“This type of … action plan aims to enhance a municipality’s resilience to changing climate conditions and enables a community to better adapt, manage [and] prepare for climate risks,” said Mona El Dabee, energy and environment manager for the Municipality of Jasper.
In February 2023, the municipality received $80,000 through the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre (MCCAC) to move forward with a climate resiliency capacity building project.
In March 2023, the municipality selected the Resilience Institute to led the development of a climate risk assessment report. The scope of work did not allow for action and implementing planning.
After the report was presented in February 2023, committee of the whole directed administration to return to a future meeting with recommendations on developing a climate change adaptation action plan.
“Associated Engineering, who conducted part of the report, recommended that the municipality develop the action plan specifically targeting the highest risks as identified in their assessment, obviously a little bit of a sore subject,” El Dabee said.
These highest risks were wildfires, extreme heat, freezing rain and glacial recession that could impact built, natural, social and economic systems.
El Dabee noted administration decided to develop the plan internally rather than externally since there would be no direct costs, and it would only take six months as opposed to a year using consultants, who would also need to be managed by municipal staff.
She added they wanted to complete the action plan as quickly as possible to meet the MCCAC’s funding application deadline for adaptation in action feasibility studies and implementation projects next February.
Mayor Richard Ireland asked if working on this plan internally would take the focus away from other initiatives.
El Dabee confirmed this wouldn’t distract from any other project, but the municipality could reevaluate down the line if needed.
Beth Sanders, director of urban design and standards, added this action plan would serve Jasper well as it rebuilds from the wildfires.
“We’ll be able to use it when we’re contemplating how to rebuild,” Sanders said. “[Knowing] what are the values and principles that we wish to have in play while we rebuild will be helpful, so there’s a strategic priority in doing it now and doing it quickly and using Mona’s expertise to do that.”
UPDATE: The Resilience Institute wishes to clarify that it is a charity and not a for-profit-consultancy, and there was no expectation for funding to advance to the next stages in developing a plan.
