County, resort considering hosting climate summit

Blaine County and Sun Valley Co. are in the early stages of planning to host an October 2026 climate solutions summit in partnership with Park City, Utah-based Mountain Towns 2030, an organization that helps U.S. mountain towns plan for climate change and advocates for them to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Since 2022, the annual, two-day Mountain Towns 2030 summit has been hosted in Breckenridge, Colorado, Vail, Colorado and Jackson, Wyoming, with an October 2025 return to Breckenridge planned.

“It’s a room full of elected officials and staff, ski resort leaders and sustainability teams, nonprofit leaders and businesses,” Mountain Towns 2030 Executive Director Chris Steinkamp said during a February presentation to the Blaine County commissioners. “Last year in Jackson, we hosted over 550 attendees from 70 mountain communities and 40 ski resorts.”

The commissioners voiced unanimous agreement during their March 18 meeting to sign a letter of intent that, according to Blaine County Sustainability Manager Andrew Mentzer, is needed prior to announcing an official partnership.

According to Mentzer, the letter is composed of “very high-level language” that does not commit Blaine County to any financial responsibility for hosting but does express an intent to enter into a hosting partnership agreement that has a “notable fee associated with it, to the tune of $150,000.”

“It does not commit Blaine County to said funds, it simply says that we intend to work toward procuring and securing the funds through local efforts,” Mentzer told the board.

The letter states, “In no way does the County’s intent expressed herein commit the County or its partners to future expenditures beyond the present budget year.

“Rather, this letter serves as an instrument for MT2030 to proceed with announcing that the conference will be brought to Blaine County in 2026 and to begin working on conference planning in earnest with Sun Valley Company.”