Sustainability and Climate Emergency Advisory Committee

THAT the Agenda dated October 6 , 2021, be approved as presented.

THAT the minutes dated September 1, 2021, be adopted as presented.

WHEREAS on Council declared a Climate Emergency at the Regular Council Meeting of December 2,2019 through Resolution No. 484-19; and WHEREAS the need to address the Climate Emergency is ever more urgent as is clear in the recently released ICCP report ; WHEREAS global heating is an emergency of a worse scale than the pandemic; with more severe and long lasting consequences; and WHEREAS Cobourg Council approved a Climate Action Plan in principle to mitigate global heating by reducing and removing sources of GHG emissions; and WHEREAS global heating has negative effects on the health of citizen and outdoor workers, municipal infrastructure, and watershed ecosystems for which an adaptation plan is needed to better manage and reduce our vulnerability to the harmful effects of global heating: extreme heat is a risk to citizen and outdoor worker health, the health of trees, causes softening/deterioration of standard road asphalt, communication wires to sag, etc flooding, high winds, freezing rain, drought can damage physical infrastructure (roads/culverts and bridges, storm water systems, water supply and sewage treatment systems, building roofs and basements, energy supply systems, communication networks, river banks, etc); causes tree damage; loss of transportation and communication services; milder winters results in increased/new pests and disease such as those affecting tree health, and more changes in freeze/thaw cycles cause can damage to infrastructure extreme variability i