The City of Kawartha Lakes is embarking on an inspiring initiative to develop a comprehensive Climate Change Strategy. The project will refresh the Healthy Environment Plan while aligning with the principles, goals, objectives, and policies of other supporting plans, including the Kawartha Lakes Strategic Plan 2024-2027. The project timeline is approximately 18 months, and its final outcome will be a refreshed Strategy that recommends and prioritizes short-, medium-, and long-term policy and infrastructure objectives to reduce the City of Kawartha Lakes’ carbon footprint (mitigation) and increase climate resilience (adaptation) to the impacts of a changing climate.

We know that climate change challenges are far too large and complex for us to address alone as an organization, which is why the Climate Change Strategy (the Strategy) will be a plan for both the community and the corporation together. The Strategy will take a two-pronged approach, addressing both adaptation and mitigation measures to ensure that Kawartha Lakes has a sustainable and resilient future.

The Strategy will:

• Provide a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• Build resiliency of the City’s infrastructure, agriculture, energy systems, land use, natural environment, and the community at large
• Include equity considerations with the knowledge that climate impacts are not felt equally or equitably across people and communities
• Contain recommendations will be cost effective, pragmatic, measurable and achievable

The adaptation planning will follow the Building Adaptive and Resilient Communities (BARC) framework, which supports local governments in preparing for the impacts of climate change. The framework consists of five milestones detailed below. Initiate, Assess, Plan, Implement, and Monitor, Review and Update. The BARC milestones are illustrated below.

The mitigation planning will follow the Partners for Climate Protection milestone framework, which is a five-step milestone framework to help local governments take action on climate change by reducing emissions within the municipality. The five milestones are illustrated below.