NEWPORT — With the impacts of climate change clearly intensifying on the West Coast, Newport and its sister communities are developing plans to strengthen Aquidneck Island’s defenses against the more devastating impacts of climate change.
"We need to make climate action a priority for cities," Energy and Environment Committee said Vice Chair Emily Conklin. “We are a city by the sea and the sea is coming to us.”
recent, city council Approved the development of a ten-year energy and environment plan designed to strengthen elements of the city’s comprehensive land use plan related to energy use and climate change resilience. The resolution passed Jan. 8 in part because the city’s comprehensive land use plan is expiring, as state law requires such plans to be updated every 10 years. The current plan, developed in 2017, outlines the city’s development goals and guidelines.
Timing wasn’t the only reason for the plan, however. The City of Newport and City Council will integrate climate change resilience issues into municipal operations through the city’s annual budget process beginning in 2024. When the fiscal year 2025 budget is adopted in May Reorganization of the municipal government’s internal organization and its staff, creating three umbrella departments to oversee the city’s 10 administrative offices. The reorganization, orchestrated by the Finance Department under former Finance Director and Interim City Manager Laura Sitrin, is intended to streamline city operations, but more pressingly, it is intended to demonstrate a commitment to making the city better by: Be more resilient to climate change: Establish the Ministry of Resilience and Sustainability, an umbrella department responsible for overseeing the utilities, public services and planning and development sectors. The new resiliency and sustainability director, former Barrington Planning, Building and Resilience Director Teresa Crean, joined the city staff in October.
“Every decision we make needs to be examined through the lens of resilience and sustainability,” Citrine wrote in his letter introducing the FY25 budget. “The creation of the Department of Resilience and Sustainability represents a A significant step forward in developing long-term plans and solutions to ensure Newport continues to thrive into the future.”
To reaffirm its commitment, the City Council passed a resolution in May reaffirming the mission and authority of the Energy and Environment Committee, a volunteer organization that has been advising on climate change resiliency and sustainability since 2008. Provide advice to Newport City Council.
As a result, the recently strengthened Energy and Environment Committee is spearheading the development of a ten-year plan as well as a new Teresa Crean, Director of Resilience and Sustainabilityjoined the city staff in October. The scheme’s framework is due to expire at the end of March.
“This is a way for us as a supportive agency to help guide our direction as a city and make sure we’re thinking about mitigation, reducing carbon emissions and protecting the city we love,” Conklin said.
Part of the job facing the Energy and Environment Committee is figuring out how to coordinate its 10-year plan with other regional and statewide plans and projects with similar goals. At the first commission meeting of the year, Crean identified the need to coordinate and leverage goals in the 2021-passed statewide climate bill, the RI Infrastructure Bank’s Municipal Resiliency Plan, the city’s Port Management Plan and the Aquidneck Island Hazard Mitigation Plan, Currently under development. Paige Myatt, one of the municipal resiliency and regional mitigation plan coordinators who attended the meeting, told the committee that the regional plan should be launched around June of this year, which would help them align with the committee’s efforts.