Southampton to Hold Dec. 12 Hearing on Climate Action Plan. - East End Beacon

Southampton to Hold Dec. 12 Hearing on Climate Action Plan. | East End Beacon

Southampton to Hold Dec. 12 Hearing on Climate Action Plan.

The Southampton Town Board will be accepting public comment on its Climate Action Plan at a Dec. 12 public hearing at 1 p.m. at town hall.

The plan, in the works since 2021, lays out a path for the town to follow to reach its ambitious goals of dramatically reducing the town’s carbon emissions, with the goal of the town being carbon neutral by the year 2040.

The plan, drafted by the Ramboll Group, a global engineering consulting firm, outlines the interplay of state and federal policies, sequestration of carbon and local initiatives that will be part of the puzzle of getting to carbon neutrality.

The consultants believe nearly half of the reduction can come from local actions outlined in the plan.

A key focus is the decarbonization of buildings, responsible for 70 percent of emissions in the town as of 2019, the baseline year studied in the plan.

A major strategy in the movement to decarbonize buildings is to convert utilities in those buildings to new high efficiency electric heating and cooling sources like heat pumps, in addition to maximizing building insulation.

The electric grid on Long Island is being rapidly decarbonized as the state pushes for renewable sources of electricity, like solar and wind power. Southampton is also in the midst of organizing Community Choice Aggregation, a program that will opt residents in to purchasing their electricity from renewable sources (residents can also opt out of this).

The plan also calls for the town to work toward building bike paths and advocating for better rail and bus service, as well as well as encouraging large-scale composting, planting trees and continued stewardship of the town’s preserved lands.

A full draft of the plan, along with a video of a March 2023 community engagement session, can be found online at southamptontownny.gov/1810/Climate-Action-Plan.