Climate Action and Adaptation Plan

Our Citywide Strategic Plan commits the City to create and support programs and policies to reduce carbon emissions from the building and transportation sectors throughout the community

The City completed a community-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory in partnership with ICLEI. The greenhouse gas emissions inventory identified our current impact on the climate, what sectors in our community are emitting greenhouse gas emissions, and helped us set a science-based target for reducing our emissions and to track our progress. The GHG Emissions Inventory will inform the City's Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.

Read the GHG Emissions Inventory(PDF, 28MB)

• Baseline and projected climate conditions. 
• Identification of vulnerable populations.
• Identification of critical systems and assets including transportation, utilities, water, buildings, environmental resources, natural habitat, recreational spaces, public health, economy, cultural resources, social/human services.  
• Determining level of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of people, systems and assets due to potential climate change impacts. 
• Understanding how climate change will affect our community, infrastructure and natural resources.  
• Identify high priority actions needed to adapt to the impacts of climate change.   

The climate vulnerability assessment will inform the City's Climate Action and Adaptation Plan and will be available in Summer of 2024. 

Climate Advisory Teams

The City has created and is in the process of creating more Climate Advisory Teams filled with both subject matter experts and community members to help guide the formation of strategies and actions to be brought to community for feedback and, pending engagement response, inclusion in the CAAP. 

• Transportation Climate Advisory Team (T-CAT)
• Commercial Building Climate Advisory Team (C-CAT)
• Residential Building Climate Advisory Team (R-CAT)

The City is partnering with the Kent County Food Policy Council and additional community stakeholders who are leading the community in Food Systems, Natural Systems and Energy Systems to guide the formation of strategies and actions for those chapters to be brought to community for feedback and, pending engagement response, inclusion in the CAAP.

If you’re interested in learning more about Climate Advisory Teams please reach out to Annabelle Wilkinson at awilkinson@grcity.us. 

C4 CAAP Committee

The Office of Sustainability is partnering with the Community Collaboration on Climate Change (C4) to co-create the City’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.

The C4 is a community organization that seeks to have Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and historically white environmental organizations dismantle extractive systems and build new systems to combat climate change - centered in human wellbeing, the interconnectedness of life, and access to shared leadership.

The C4’s CAAP Committee works to plan the engagement process, event planning, and will act as a partner in the drafting process.

For more information on the C4, visit the C4’s website.

 Best Practice Climate Plans 

Feel free to browse the below municipal climate plans, which we believe demonstrate best practices to be considered for our plan:

• Providence Climate Justice Plan 
• Austin Climate Equity Plan 
• West Hollywood Climate Action & Adaptation Plan 
• Portland Climate Action Plan
• Minneapolis Climate Equity Plan

Media & Press Coverage

Stay tuned!