Climate Action Plan 2030

The City of Kingston creatied a Climate Action Plan 2030 (CAP), which provides a blueprint to build sustainable, resilient, and independent energy, food, economic, and social systems over the next 10 years. With the community's help, we developed a vision that is community-wide, bold, transformative, engaging, and capable of achieving sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Climate Action Background:

In spring 2020, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation named Kingston the first Silver Certified Climate Smart City in the State of New York

This honor recognizes our strong efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a changing climate. To date, measures we've taken include installation of EV charging stations in public parking lots and solar panels on municipal buildings, and integration of green infrastructure into streetscape projects, to name a few. For a comprehensive report on the City’s achievements in sustainability, click here to read the New York State Climate Smart Communities Certification Report on Kingston.

CAP 2030 Overview and Project Status:

The Climate Action Plan 2030 will build upon this successful climate smart work in order to further achieve a safe, healthy community for generations to come. Our leaders are invested in a more sustainable future, and the process of developing our CAP is a key opportunity for the community to provide input.

In late 2020, the City partnered with Citizens for Local Power, a local nonprofit energy educator, to engage the community on the development of the CAP 2030 and identify the public’s priorities for the next ten years. Key engagement activities in 2021 included a public survey (view the results here), community meetings (click below to watch the 1/14/21 kick-off event in English and Spanish), and neighborhood focus groups. In addition, a Project Advisory Committee, composed of residents, climate action advocates and specialists, and elected officials, provided local expertise and content expertise to further inform the draft plan.

Based upon this community input, CADMUS, an environmental consultancy firm, identified 20 potential climate action strategies and conducted an analysis on seven of those strategies that required more data. The final Climate Action Plan 2030 will provide an overview of these strategies, which includes those that are in-progress and/or primed to be launched in the coming decade. A companion implementation handbook will be produced in 2022 to further advance these strategies.

Click below to read the final Climate Action Plan document:

Community members had opportunities to provide feedback on the draft plan during the comment period, as well as during two public meetings. Comments were incorporated into the final plan, which has been submitted to the Common Council for adoption.

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Recent CAP 2021 survey results can be found here.

Please watch a recording of the CAP 2030 Kick-off meeting that took place on January 14, 2021 in which consultants from Cadmus presented findings from months of research.

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