Plan

Vermont Climate Action Plan

Summary

The Climate Action Plan outlines the steps Vermont needs to take to impact meaningful climate action. This Plan includes recommended actions for state, regional, local, private, and non-profit sector partners. It also includes actions that individual Vermonters can take, highlighting the request the Council heard many times for a set of implementable actions at all levels of society and government. This Plan is organized around five areas: • Emissions reductions; • Building resilience and adaptation in Vermont’s natural and working lands; • Building resilience and adaptation in Vermont’s communities and built environment; • Enhancing carbon sequestration and storage; and • Cross-cutting pathways

Year

2024

Details

Hazards Addressed

Severe Winter Weather

Wildfire

Assets

Critical Facilities

Cultural and Community Services

Energy and Utilities

Multiple or All Assets

Natural Areas and Wildlife

People

Property

Transportation and Mobility

Water Infrastructure – Stormwater

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Equity Insights

The Vermont Climate Council recognized early in the process the further work it needed to do – both internally and externally – to build equity into climate action in Vermont and Vermont’s Climate Action Plan and ensure a just transition. To realize the transformative change that is needed, Vermonters must be part of not only the solutions but in determining them, supporting all residents of the State fairly and equitably. Specifically, the Council took a three-pronged approach to incorporating and applying equity principles in policy and decision-making: holding space, organizational analysis, and engagement. The act of holding space refers to the Council’s commitment to start every Council meeting witha presentation or discussion related to equity. Rather than having one or a few specific trainings in the area, this has provided a continual opportunity to hear from experts in the field, working on the ground in Vermont and/or have facilitated conversations around what the work looks like in practice. This work will need to be continued as the State of Vermont and Vermonters work to implement the Climate Action Plan (CAP).

Lessons Learned

The topography or physical geography of Vermont is one of the most important factors in influencing the occurrence of natural hazards their impacts on human settlements, the location of our major roadways in steep, V-shaped valleys, and our ability to increase resilience as a state. The north-south spine of the Green Mountains, along with the complex east-west valleys and the north-south ridges of the Taconic Mountains6 affect the movement of localized winds and incidence of freezing rain conditions; produces enhanced orographic precipitation and the associated flooding events; control the incidence of pollution and stagnation events, as well as variations in freeze and frost dates.