by Julianna Bonnett
photos by the Town of Essex
The Town of Essex is taking the next step into developing an adaptation plan for climate change this upcoming year.
Last Thursday, the Essex Climate Adaptation Team held its first meeting. Back in January, the Town was looking for interested citizens and stakeholders to become members of the team to come up with a strategy to further adaptation, reduce vulnerability, enhance community resilience, and protect resources.
Essex’s Climate Change Analyst, Niharika Bandaru, hosted the meeting and said the involvement of the Town and her team made the meeting go smoothly.
“The end result of all these meetings, and organizing all of this, is so we can get an adaptation plan in place for Essex,” Bandaru said.
“We basically went over a climate projection for the region, and, following that, we showed members of the community some recent weather events that have affected many.”
Bandaru said many people in the region and in their community have been affected by the change in the weather and certain events in the last two years.
“We know with the change in our weather system, families and residence have been affected by what the weather can do in such a short amount of time,” Bandaru commented. “What’s been hardest on our residence were the constant rain storms that have caused big amounts of flooding.”
Kim Verbeek, who is the Council liaison member of this Committee, said she was happy to attend the meeting and all the other meetings in the future to help with the future of Essex.
“I was very impressed to see how well it was put together,” Verbeek said. “Each member of the team knew what they wanted to say and was able to guide me and the other locals there in a direction of understanding what their plan was and how they were going to help with the ongoing climate change.”
For more information on the Essex Climate Adaptation Team, go to essex.ca/ECAT.