Sligo County Council DRAFT Climate Action Plan 2024-2029

Executive Summary:

Climate Change has been identified as the defining social, economic and environmental challenge of our time. Local Government has been identified as a key player in leading climate action at a local, community-based level and planning for the effects of climate change has now become a key challenge. Local Authorities (LAs) have been tasked with leveraging support and resources to deliver effective climate action from the ground up.
This approach has been made into law requiring each Local Authority in the country to lead in Climate Action at a county level. It is envisaged that leadership will be plan-led namely through a Local Authority Climate Action Plan (LACAP).These LACAPs will be key instruments that strengthen the links between local, regional, national and international climate policy. The plans will need to deliver effective climate action at the local and community level through place-based and evidence-based climate action. The LACAPs are statutory 5-year plans and are required to include mitigation and adaptation actions that ultimately provide pathways to achieve a decarbonised society. Each LACAP is to be adopted by their Elected Members in 2024 and will last for 5 years.
Over this period Sligo County Council (SCC) will be responsible for enhancing climate resilience, increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, across its own assets, services and infrastructure. SCC will also need to proactively use its broader role of influencing, coordinating/facilitating and advocating other sectors to meet their own climate targets and ambitions. This plan outlines the ambition of SCC in climate action and sets out a clear Vision and Mission. The Vision describes how a climate-resilient Sligo will be proactive in addressing climate change and a model of best practice in climate action. The Mission Statement outlines how SCC will meet that vision. Internally the ambition is to meet our own emissions and energy efficiency targets. These include a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a 50% improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. Externally the LA seeks to influence, advocate and facilitate climate action ambitions within the local and business communities. These ambitions and pathways to achieve targets are outlined in this plan.

The plan is divided into several sections. These include:
Local Authority Climate Action Planning - Introduces the plan-making process, placing in context the scope and ambition of the LACAP relative to national legally binding targets.
Risk Assessment and Evidence Base - Provides information on the baseline emissions data used to inform the plan and an overview of the Climate Change Risk Assessment prepared for the LACAP. Both have been used to inform the plan-making process placing in context the challenges faced by the county in meeting national emissions targets.
Climate Action in other SCC Policies & ongoing projects – Provides some details and references to the extensive consideration of climate change in other important corporate policies, as well as outlining some of the existing & ongoing climate action projects that are already in place.
List of Actions - The focus of the plan, outlining the strategic goals, objectives and actions that aim to bring to fruition the vision and mission. The actions aim to be specific, measurable, action-focused, realistic and timebound (SMART).
Sligo Decarbonisation Zone - As required, the plan also includes a Decarbonising Zone (DZ). The area identified in Sligo is the southeastern area of Sligo Town. The aim of the DZ is to identify pathways to meet the national emission reduction target of 51% by 2030 and net zero by end of 2050 (from the baseline year of 2018). Learnings will be gathered in the DZ on the real-life experiences and challenges to meet these targets across all sectors. This specific place-based approach seeks to promote wider collaboration with all stakeholders to create tailored policies to deliver climate action.
Implementation - The ability of the Local Authority sector to demonstrate performance on climate action will form a crucial component in successfully illustrating if and how the sector is leading by example, and what role Local Authorities are playing in national climate action targets. This section outlines three key activities that SCC must consider once the plan is adopted, including planning for Implementation & tracking of progress through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and reporting requirements and arrangements.

As required the Sligo LACAP 2024-2029 has been subject to a Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) and Appropriate Assessment (AA). Mitigation as required by environmental assessment has been incorporated into this LACAP.