Pitkin County staff unveil first Climate Action Plan; commissioners set informal adoption review

Pitkin County staff presented the county’s first consolidated Climate Action Plan to the Board of County Commissioners on March 11, outlining 38 prioritized actions focused on the county’s span of control and internal operations as well as community-facing programs.

The plan, assembled by the county climate team and department contributors, seeks to translate goals in the county’s 2019 climate emergency declaration and the 2021 climate action goals into a concrete, five-year implementation framework. “The county is doing a lot of great work,” Michael Fort, climate action analyst, said while introducing the plan. He described the CAP as an effort to stitch together existing projects — from facilities and fleet electrification to open space management and waste diversion — under one actionable framework.

County resilience and housing director Ashley Herold framed the CAP as the county’s organizational plan and emphasized staff ownership of the actions. “We were most confident in adopting a CAP that was within the county’s span of control,” she said, noting the document intentionally focuses on measures the county can implement without relying on third parties. Fort added the CAP aims to be a living document: departments wrote sector-specific actions and agreed timelines, resource needs and implementation leads for each item.

Why it matters: the plan connects county operations to the county’s greenhouse gas reduction target and to regional resilience work. Fort showed historical climate indicators — such as an increase in frost-free days — and said the CAP was designed so the county could accelerate existing projects and standardize policies to meet goals. The county’s GHG goal cited in the presentation is a 90% reduction from 2019 levels by 2050; staff also flagged an outside analysis showing an alternate science-aligned pathway that would require deeper interim reductions by 2030.

Discussion and next steps: commissioners pressed staff on measurement and costs. They asked how the county will track and celebrate incremental successes, and how projects such as building electrification will be prioritized amid limited funding. Fort and Herold said some actions lend themselves to clear GHG accounting while others produce co-benefits (resilience, mobility, equity) that are harder to quantify. Commissioners and staff agreed that the CAP should be a tool to inform project-level tradeoffs and budget prioritization.

Board direction: the board asked staff to return with the CAP for an informal-resolution review on March 26; staff confirmed they would bring the CAP back for that informal adoption process. Staff also flagged a separate, future conversation about adopting more aggressive interim targets aligned to international climate guidance; commissioners asked that any change be coordinated with Vision 2050 and other county goal-setting processes.

The CAP document itself and departmental appendices are available through county staff for review; staff said they will follow up with metrics development as part of the implementation phase.