BEACONSFIELD IS AMONG TWENTY-FIVE MUNICIPALITIES ACROSS CANADA THAT SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED AN INTENSIVE PILOT FOCUSING ON LOCAL CLIMATE ACTION. In August 2019, the City of Beaconsfield was selected to join the first Showcase Cities cohort led by the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) Canada. As a member of this network, we received free support to spur climate action at a local level. Over the past year, Beaconsfield has benefited from targeted technical support, training and access to tools and resources. With the help of this support, the City was able to develop three action plans of the i3P project to make our community more resilient to the impacts of climate change: GHG Reduction Plan, Community Energy Plan and Climate Adaptation Plan. "We are proud of this unique initiative, which allowed us to identify local priorities for climate action, from innovative projects to reduce GHG emissions to initiatives that protect our community from extreme weather events. This was a major challenge that our administration met with great success," said Georges Bourelle, Mayor of Beaconsfield. With the help of ICLEI and the FCM and the other participating municipalities, Beaconsfield achieved the GHG emissions inventory badge, as well as the Climate risk and vulnerability assessment badge, as awarded by the global program of GCoM. Through participation in this pilot, Beaconsfield has been recognized as a leader on local climate action both nationally and internationally. This sets up the conditions for further success as municipalities tackle the issues of climate change. The initiative combines two leading domestic climate programs, the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program and Building Adaptive and Resilient Communities (BARC), with the leading global climate program. The GCoM Canada is piloting this approach, which will build on FCM and ICLEI’s more than 25 years’ experience in delivering climate change programs in Canada. The Global Covenant of Mayors Canada is a collaboration between the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, the Global Covenant of Mayors Secretariat and the International Urban Cooperation Project supported by funding from the European Union. About the Global Covenant of Mayors Canada partners The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is the national voice of municipal governments, with 2,000 members representing more than 90 per cent of the Canadian population. ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability is an international association of local governments committed to sustainability. The Canada offices work with local governments across the country to meet with their sustainability objectives. The International Urban Cooperation (IUC) programme is part of a long-term strategy by the European Union to foster sustainable urban development in cooperation with both the public and private sectors. The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) is the largest global alliance for climate leadership, uniting a global coalition of over 10,000 cities and local governments. By 2030, GCoM cities and local governments could collectively reduce 1.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year. That’s the equivalent of taking 276 million cars off the road.
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