Telluride adopts regional Climate Action Plan | News | telluridenews ... - The Daily Planet

Telluride adopts regional Climate Action Plan | News | telluridenews.com

Of the 32,522 towns, regions, countries and organizations engaging in climate action being tracked globally on an interactive website map managed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Telluride and San Miguel County are not yet listed, but earlier this month, the Town of Telluride took definitive action on climate change by agreeing to formally join a regional Climate Action Plan.

Telluride Town Council voted at its June 13 meeting to join the Ouray and San Miguel County Regional Climate Action Plan designed and presented by EcoAction Partners in collaboration with its energy board.

Telluride Deputy Town Manager Zoe Dohnal explained the town’s purpose of having a regional Climate Action Plan by saying, “It’s really important…that we are all aligned and moving in a similar direction towards some of these bigger, broader topics.”

“The regional Climate Action Plan, while a little bit more broad, still supports our individual goals, but also helps align that collaboration and getting some of those low-hanging fruit and priorities aligned throughout the region. So that is the purpose of that tool,” Dohnal said.

The regional plan can act as a roadmap, according to a May 16 memo sent to the Town of Telluride from EcoAction Partners.

The regional plan puts forward the same goal as the State of Colorado to create a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the memo states. That aligns with what the U.S. has pledged to meet climate goals under the international treaty for reducing the impact of the climate crisis, the Paris Agreement, which says the U.S. will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by 50% of the levels of gasses that were detected in 2005.

The date of the town council’s vote to join the regional plan leaves the town and county with roughly 6 years and six months to implement its actions to meet climate objectives and goals.

But on Monday, a study published by the Energy Institute analyzing 2022 energy data warned the global energy sector is moving in the opposite direction of the Paris Agreement goals.

That’s because even as renewable energy grows (solar and wind hit a record last year by sharing 12% of electricity generation globally, the report states), there has been no change globally to fossil fuel consumption for energy and carbon dioxide emissions are continuing to increase.

Monday’s report is a sharp contrast to President Joe Biden’s remarks in November that the U.S. is on track to meet climate goals by 2030.

Telluride and San Miguel County’s regional Climate Action Plan quotes EcoAction Partners’ energy board as saying it is working with the San Miguel Power Association to help it meet its target for 2030: 80% renewable energy.

And while San Miguel Power Association does have established solar arrays, The Norwood Post reported on June 21 that the association hadn’t had any recent talks with OneEnergy regarding its new proposal to install a 600-acre solar plant at Wright’s Mesa in Norwood. That project could potentially provide 100 megawatts of solar power.

The regional Climate Action Plan does state that San Miguel Power Association provides electricity through Tri-State, of which 63% comes from fossil fuels.

The day after the Town of Telluride’s June 13 vote to join the regional Climate Action Plan, Norwood Mayor Candy Meehan said she had been talking with locals and has requested for the county’s planning meetings regarding the solar project to begin taking place in Norwood, instead of in Telluride, the Post reported this week.

A six-month moratorium remains in effect on new solar developments because the county said it needs more time to review and potentially update its land-use code.

Over half of all the greenhouse gas emissions in San Miguel and Ouray counties in 2021 came from residential and commercial buildings and vehicles, according to the regional Climate Action Plan.

“The increasing trend of (greenhouse gas) emissions is due to a growing tourism economy,” the regional Climate Action Plan states. “While the rate of this growth is predicted to decrease it continues to impact all sectors except residential energy use. Fortunately, because we have the support of both San Miguel Power Association and TriState in the renewable energy transition, we can focus on reduction strategies outside of grid supplied electricity, namely local renewable energy production…”

The regional Climate Action Plan says Tri-State is on board with San Miguel Power Association to meet its 80% renewable energy goal by 2030. By signing onto the regional Climate Action Plan, the Town of Telluride is supporting the first objective in the plan, which includes supporting the San Miguel Power Association “in increasing community solar arrays in the region” and “identify and eliminate barriers to local renewable energy production.”

Kendra Held, a climate action fellow at EcoAction Partners, joined the June 13 town council meeting and said EcoAction Partners is asking “each of the regional governments to adopt the regional Climate Action Plan.”

EcoAction Partners hopes that by doing so, the regional plan will “align goals across the region.” The organization is working to “identify where areas of collaboration are most important,” Held said, and how among the “differing sectors…there’s a lot of areas of overlap and areas where they might not overlap tend to be areas where that kind of regional collaboration is most salient or important…collaboration with other municipalities, collaboration with utilities, things to that extent.”