Climate Accountability Toolkit: - A Roadmap for Municipalities

It also means being answerable and transparent about local climate risks and impacts, the actions required to be resilient to a changing climate, the actions that could work against this resilience, and the mechanisms that will be used to monitor and report on climate adaptation work. [...] The motivations behind climate emergency declarations are varied, but many of them cite the scientific consensus on the severity and urgency of the climate crisis, whereby the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that the world is rapidly approaching a point of no return, beyond which it will become increasingly difficult to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. [...] 8 A Roadmap for Municipalities 2.2 Benefits of a Climate Emergency Declarations Municipal climate emergency declarations can generate a range of benefits, including: • Increased awareness and understanding of the urgency and severity of the climate crisis among municipal staff, elected officials, and the community. [...] Research and preparation: Council and/or staff may research and prepare content for the declaration that can include the impacts of climate change, climate targets and timelines of other jurisdictions, actions that could be taken by the municipality and the language and content of existing climate emergency declarations. [...] They should then speak to relevant baseline data, and establish objectives and targets, describing the mechanism and policies that will accomplish the actions, the budget 13 A Roadmap for Municipalities allocated to plan implementation, and the monitoring, evaluation, and reporting frameworks that will track progress.