Resilient St. John's Climate Plan

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Climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation. It is a sustainability cornerstone issue that needs to be addressed to achieve sustainable development and ensure that our efforts for long-term recovery are not undermined by the risks that climate change presents. The Resilient St. John’s Climate Plan focuses on this sustainability issue by addressing energy and climate change impacts.

The plan identifies a 30-year strategy, with specific actions for the upcoming years to reduce our community's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while re-enforcing efforts to stabilize 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 Resilient St. John's Community Climate Plan's evidence-based and stakeholder-driven development process to-date includes:

  • Public and stakeholder engagement to understand priorities and concerns - What-We-Heard.
  • Development and adoption by City Council of the Corporate Climate Plan to address the City's operations energy use GHGs.
  • A holistic community model to understand energy and GHG emission from our community as a whole currently, and for both a business-as-usual (BAP) and the low-carbon (LC) future captured in this plan.
  • A financial analysis of both scenarios to ensure that its implementation results in a positive and equitable benefit to our economy, savings to residents' energy related costs, creation of jobs, and a positive return-on-investment for our community as a whole.
  • A stakeholder-driven strategic risk assessment to identify the ongoing and projected impacts to our community from climate change and plan to adapt.

The City encourages you to review the proposed actions to Mitigate our GHG contribution to climate change and Adapt to its impacts on our community, and have your say by:

  • Participating through the engagement tools below.
  • Attending the upcoming Virtual Public Session December 2 at 7 pm - Signup
  • Providing a letter of support if you or your organization would like to show your commitment to climate action. Please submit signed letters of support to efausto@stjohns.ca(External link).

Climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation. It is a sustainability cornerstone issue that needs to be addressed to achieve sustainable development and ensure that our efforts for long-term recovery are not undermined by the risks that climate change presents. The Resilient St. John’s Climate Plan focuses on this sustainability issue by addressing energy and climate change impacts.

The plan identifies a 30-year strategy, with specific actions for the upcoming years to reduce our community's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while re-enforcing efforts to stabilize 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 Resilient St. John's Community Climate Plan's evidence-based and stakeholder-driven development process to-date includes:

  • Public and stakeholder engagement to understand priorities and concerns - What-We-Heard.
  • Development and adoption by City Council of the Corporate Climate Plan to address the City's operations energy use GHGs.
  • A holistic community model to understand energy and GHG emission from our community as a whole currently, and for both a business-as-usual (BAP) and the low-carbon (LC) future captured in this plan.
  • A financial analysis of both scenarios to ensure that its implementation results in a positive and equitable benefit to our economy, savings to residents' energy related costs, creation of jobs, and a positive return-on-investment for our community as a whole.
  • A stakeholder-driven strategic risk assessment to identify the ongoing and projected impacts to our community from climate change and plan to adapt.

The City encourages you to review the proposed actions to Mitigate our GHG contribution to climate change and Adapt to its impacts on our community, and have your say by:

  • Participating through the engagement tools below.
  • Attending the upcoming Virtual Public Session December 2 at 7 pm - Signup
  • Providing a letter of support if you or your organization would like to show your commitment to climate action. Please submit signed letters of support to efausto@stjohns.ca(External link).

  • 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:

    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.


Page last updated: 01 December 2021, 15:10