Resilient St. John's Climate Plan

Thank you for your interest in this project. Consultation has now concluded. Check out the Life Cycle or News for updates.

• Final Reports presented to Committee of the Whole March 9

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  The Resilient St. John’s Community Climate Plan (Resilient St. John’s Plan) was presented to Council at Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, March 9. The development of this plan followed an evidence-based, stakeholder-driven, holistic process. The planned development was a multi-stage process including: context review, early public consultation, stakeholder engagement workshops, technical modelling for business-as-usual and low-carbon scenarios, scenario-based risk management practices consistent with the ISO 31000:2018 Risk Management for Climate Adaptation & Resilience standard, and a second stakeholder and public engagement effort to inform the path forward. The plan will go forward at a regular meeting of Council in the coming weeks for final approval.

• What we Heard about the draft plan released

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  The City of St. John’s has released the summary of its second round of public engagement to guide actions that will address climate change in the community. The document will be presented to Council at Committee of the Whole on Jan. 12, 2022.

  The purpose of the engagement was to inform residents and other interested stakeholders about the draft plan, seek feedback, and to share information about the primary elements of the plan – adaptation and mitigation.

  Feedback collected during this second phase of public engagement has been shared with lead staff and a project consultant who are developing the Community Climate Plan for City Council.

  Public Engagement for this project included 1,600 visits to EngageStJohns.ca over the life of the project; 217 visits during the draft plan engagement phase; and 14 active engagements on the draft plan. Thirty people attended a virtual public meeting about the draft Climate Plan, and an all-committee meeting was held with representatives of the City’s Advisory Committees.

  Highlights of What We Heard Include:

  • Economic analysis to make sure the proposed path is good economic policy is good.

  • The plan should lead to de-incentivization of sprawl and more mixed use, and intensification.

  • Energy efficiency is very important to help manage increasing energy costs and helps address other affordability issues including food security and overall wellbeing.

  • The plan should value the existing built environments and encourage adaptive reuse of existing buildings and encourage maintenance over demolition and rebuild.

  • Focus on public transit improvements, active transportation, electrification of vehicles and collaboration to improve access to electric vehicle charging.

  • Need a solution for Electric Vehicle charging for those who don’t have off-street parking.

  • Calls to produce more food locally in an environmentally responsible way, including community gardens and composting.

  The complete ‘What We Heard’ document is available on this page.

  The Resilient St. John’s Community Climate Plan is expected to be released in early 2022 and will identify a 30-year strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with a 5-year action plan. It will also provide strategies to further prepare the City to address the challenges and opportunities presented by the impacts from climate change.

  The City of St. John’s is committed to a city that is sustainable today and for future generations; economically, environmentally and financially.

  
  

• Public Consultation Phase 2 - Have your say on the Climate Emergency

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  On Nov 17, 2021 an update was brought to City Council at Committee of the Whole on the draft Resilient St. John's Community Climate Plan and the second and final stage of public consultation was launched. The draft Plan includes actions to reduce greenhouse gas emission within our community and adaptation actions to address the impacts of highest risk to our community. For clarity, the action plans for adaptation and mitigation are being released separately but were developed through a holistic approach.

  

  The plan document was separated by topic area and can be found here for your review:

  Resilient St. John's Climate Action Plan - Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases

  Resilient St. John's Climate Action Plan - Adaptation to Impacts from Climate Change

  Additional information about the Community Energy and GHG model used can be found (here) and modeling results can be found (here)

  Have your say on the Climate Emergency - Resilient St. John’s Community Climate Plan

  Public consultation will be ongoing from November 22nd to December 3rd. Review the documents above and have your say by either:

  • Participating in the Have Your Say discussion forum
  • Attending the Virtual Public Session on December 2nd from 7 to 8:30 pm - signup
  • Providing a letter of support if you or your organization would like to show your support for the planned actions. Please submit signed letters of support to efausto@stjohns.ca(External link)(External link)
  • Additional sessions will be held for members of the various Citizen Committees of Council

  The Plan will be reviewed and brought to City Council for consideration of adoption. Letters of support will be attached to the plan when submitted to City Council for consideration of adoption.

• What we Heard document released 2020-2021

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  On Wednesday, March 10 the findings of the first round of public engagement to guide a community climate change plan will be tabled at Committee of the Whole. Over 60 impacts to the St. John’s community are identified, 15 of which are the most likely to occur.

  The purpose of the engagement was to help identify how climate change impacts St. John’s as a community, what is important to residents, and suggestions related to reducing or mitigating greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).

  What we heard in workshops and public sessions about opportunities to reduce GHGs and energy use include:

  • Improving public transit
  • Supporting the availability of local food and products
  • Retrofitting existing residential buildings to reduce energy
  • Supporting electric/hybrid vehicle use

  Responses were captured at engagestjohns.ca through an interactive map, quick polls, a ranking tool on criteria and actions, and virtual public sessions. In addition, the City’s Multi-Stakeholder Sustainability Team comprised of representatives of community organizations participated in two workshops to capture initial perceptions and to identify expected structural, ecological and socio-economic impacts for the changing climate.

  The Resilient St. John’s Community Climate Plan is expected to be released in late summer 2021 and will identify a 30-year strategy to reduce GHGs while stabilizing energy costs by supporting energy efficiency. It will also provide strategies to further prepare the City to address the challenges and opportunities presented by the impacts from climate change.

  The complete ‘What We Heard’ document can be found here.

  The City of St. John’s is committed to a city that is sustainable today and for future generations; economically, environmentally and financially. This project is identified in Our City, Our Future under the Sustainability priority with the goal to plan for land use and preserve and enhance the natural and built environment where we live.

• Closed - We need your input to help shape St. John's Energy Transition

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  City staff is gathering the community’s ideas and feedback to help inform the community-wide energy and emissions reduction plan. Individuals, businesses and all stakeholders are needed to share their experiences and contribute their thoughts to help shape St. John's energy future.

  
  

  We need your input to help identify the low-carbon actions that could be taken to help St. John’s achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Also, to tell us about what is important to you when considering a low-carbon action. You can spend as much time as you like on the questions below. That is part of their design. Jump off the surveys whenever you like and review the collective results to date.

  
  

  1: Which criteria is more important to consider when selecting actions for St. John's clean energy transition?

  

  2: Which action do you think the community should prioritize to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions?

  Learn more about how these Questions work to help the City make better decisions: Technical Paper Link

  Disclaimer: The website you will be entering is not owned or operated by the City of St. John’s. The content, products and information contained on third party websites are not owned or controlled by the City of St John’s. Therefore, we make no representations about, do not endorse, and are not responsible or liable for damages relating to the third party, its products or services, its website, its privacy policies or practices, or the content of the third party website.

  
  

• Facilitate a Climate Workshop with the City's Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Community Climate Workshop Tool

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  The DIY Community Climate Workshop tool was developed to support community groups who would like to host their own conversations about the future sustainability of St. John’s.

  • Community organizations/associations
  • Family/friends
  • Neighbourhood or residents' associations
  • Workplaces
  • Church/faith groups
  • School/classroom

  Its main purpose is to support you by providing background information, a proposed approach to the session, and clarity to ensure the feedback from these sessions is aligned with the ongoing planning efforts of the City of St. John’s. The workshop is designed to take about one hour to complete, but it is flexible. As a facilitator, your role is to prepare in advance, ask questions, guide the discussion, and gather information. The participants may come to an agreement around suggestions and recommendations, but it is also okay if they don’t. The goal is to create a safe space to talk about climate change and understand the different opinions and ideas within our community.

  The presentation provides helpful background information about climate change, the context, and the overall project, but if you’re pressed for time you can also just skip straight to the discussion slides. Feel free to be creative about how to workshop the questions provided (e.g., small groups, various sessions, open discussion, mind mapping tools, etc.). Lastly, to make things easier, this document also serves as a template to record responses after the workshop that can be completed and submitted to city staff to be included in the planning for a Resilient St. John's. To learn more about how to use the tool, sign up for one of our DIY workshop preparation sessions. Check out the Key dates for details.

  To get started Download the Facilitator's Guide and the Presentation.