City Council Talks Climate Change On Earth Day

{audio}images/stories/mp3/city_climate_23_april.mp3″]

Walters Doesn’t Want To Spend "Millions"

The Kodiak City Council debated the merits of combating climate change at an Earth Day work session last night (Tuesday).

Theresa Peterson of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council gave a presentation on the Community Baseline Emissions Inventory, a program designed to gauge how big a community’s carbon footprint is. Once that is determined the community can look for ways to cut down on emissions and energy use.

It was developed by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, or ICLEI (ick-ly), a group that advocates for local governments to find climate change solutions. Peterson said it involves hiring an intern for ten weeks to complete the study. She added that several groups in the community had already expressed support for the project, including some that wanted to offer financial assistance.

(City Climate 1 :33s “…some money towards it.”)

The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly will take up the topic at its work session on Thursday, and Peterson suggested that the two bodies could work together on the project.

(City Climate 2 :29s “…your very busy staff.”)

But Councilman Tom Walters had some concerns. He worried that once the emissions study was done, the city would be told that the only way to reduce energy use, would be to spend a lot of money.

(City Climate 3 :35s “…and millions of dollars.”)

Councilman Jack Maker countered that the study was just the first step, and the only way money would be spent after that was if the city council agreed to it.

(City Climate 4 :33s “…make it expensive.”)

Walters said that’s all he needed to hear, and that if the project proceeded he wouldn’t have a problem with that. Maker will actually be attending an ICLEI conference next month in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

###