Climate Plan: 2010 Objectives
- Review of the Plan draft and laying of implementation groundwork with Town departments
- An education / outreach initiative in the summer of 2010 for the Climate Plan. This will include community forums, guest speakers from other communities, and printed information about the specifics of the plan as an effort to help residents and visitors understand the complex nature of Climate Change and the positive steps the Town of Nantucket is planning to adopt.
- Passage of the Climate Protection Plan
The Climate Plan is focused around the municipality acting as both a leader by example – reducing its own carbon emissions– and as a catalyst –by implementing both policy changes and community-wide education– to bring about substantial change on-island, and to realize our vision. We envision the island as a carbon neutral entity and an energy producer utilizing our strongest available source of renewable energy –wind, while reducing our other primary and secondary sources of carbon emissions as much as possible.
We see most, if not all, municipal and individual vehicles being electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles within ten years – brought about by marketplace demand, and municipal regulation. These vehicles could avail themselves of clean & renewable energy, and would act as a reservoir and battery for the local electricity supply. This Plan would provide the added bonus of supporting the local economy by providing additional local jobs and, ideally, making us an eco-tourism destination, as well as –the electric vehicle element – helping to greatly decrease carbon emissions and traffic noise and pollution. We also envision producing as much of our food on-island as possible, given our natural limitations.
Currently, many opportunities and policy implementations are coming together making this the perfect time to put into practice a climate plan for our community. Drafting a Climate Plan qualifies us for “Smart Growth Points” in Massachusetts, improving the Town’s “credit score” with the state, which increases our eligibility for grants and lower-interest rates on long term municipal loans for capital projects.
Key criteria for funding for renewable energy and energy–efficiency projects ($10 million will be available for grants, annually, for Towns in Massachusetts with populations under 35,000), as provided for in the Massachusetts Green Communities Act, include completing and implementing a Climate Protection Action Plan such as the one we are currently drafting, and creating as-of-right siting for renewable energy projects in designated locations, an element which are incorporated into the Plan.
In Progress: Achieving the 3rd Milestone of the Campaign, designing a Climate Protection Action Plan for Nantucket.
