Open letter asking Council to stick to the plan for climate action funding

February 19, 2024, KAMLOOPS – As City Council heads into the final stages of budget season, a surprise move to re-consider the City’s award-winning funding formula for climate action at this Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting has got hundreds of local residents upset.

“This region’s vulnerability to climate-related harm (fire, flood, and freeze-thaw cycles) to infrastructure and tourism assets (let alone the human cost, given the number of people experiencing homelessness) should make it clear that this is not the time to be backing off on investing in climate action,” says Dr. Nancy Flood, a long-time resident and President of the Kamloops Naturalist Club.

The reason the City adopted the funding formula, called the Climate Action Levy, in 2021 was to provide reliable, long-term funding that grows over time. It was designed to build up the reserves required to tackle necessary, but expensive, infrastructure projects—and allow the City to leverage those dollars to access grant funding available for climate action from higher levels of government.

The Climate Action Levy contributes to priority actions focused not only on mitigation, but adaptation efforts as well. Says Gisela Ruckert, an organizer with Transition Kamloops (the group that spearheaded the open letter to Council), We need both a fluid funding source for the short-term (for secure bike parking, climate action grants, municipal incentives and rebates for home energy efficiency retrofits, EV readiness, etc.), and the larger, reliable funding to plan major projects like improving the community’s active transportation network and decarbonizing civic facilities.

Several local organizations, including Physicians for a Healthy Environment, Kamloops Moms for Clean Air, Kamloops Naturalist Club, the Youth of Kamloops Climate Action Network, the Kamloops Cycling Coalition, the Kamloops Bike Riders Association, the TRU Geography Society and over 200 individual Kamloopsians had signed the letter by noon today.

“We didn’t anticipate that there would be an appetite on Council to revisit the climate action funding formula, given that our City won so much positive recognition for it and it’s being used as a model by other communities,” says Ruckert.  “So we’ve had only a day or so to do anything about it, and we are amazed at the response we’ve seen to our invitation to sign the open letter. Clearly, this news hit a nerve.”

The open letter is copied below. Signers can be viewed here. Anyone wishing to add their name can do so here.