Council hears regional climate collaborative briefing on energy, trees and outreach

The North Las Vegas City Council received an informational presentation June 18 from the All In Regional Climate Collaborative on regional greenhouse gas inventories, energy- and building-efficiency strategies, distributed solar, urban tree canopy and community outreach efforts.

"For almost 2 years now, I've had the distinct pleasure of representing the city of North Las Vegas as a member of the Regional Climate Collaborative," Veronica Freeman, a grant officer for the city and the council’s representative to the collaborative, told council. Freeman introduced staff from the Clark County Department of Environment and Sustainability, which helped develop the regional plan and research.

Clark County staff described recent inventory updates and priorities. Jody Bechtel, assistant director in the county’s Department of Environment and Sustainability, said the collaborative updated its greenhouse-gas inventory with newer data and "we had set a 32% reduction goal, which aligned with the state of Nevada's reduction goals." Bechtel told council the county’s roll-up inventory shows buildings and building energy supply are the largest emissions source and that updated (2019→2022) data indicate the region is on a trajectory toward its stated goal, while acknowledging challenges remain.

Robert Bergey, climate and sustainability program manager, highlighted clean-energy and transportation trends. He said electricity-related emissions fell even as consumption rose, crediting a cleaner grid and state renewable policies, and noted distributed solar continues to grow: "over 6% of the installations in 2022 and 2023 were in North Las Vegas," Bergey said. The collaborative had pursued an EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant proposal for a regional building-improvement hub (staff described a $500 million-scale concept), but did not receive the award; staff said the work and materials produced for that application can be used or scaled later.

Bechtel and Bergey also summarized local progress on urban forestry and resilience. They said North Las Vegas has made strides—Tree City USA designation, lidar tree inventory work and local awards—and highlighted the role of shade and canopy in reducing urban-heat impacts. Bechtel said the county is working on resilience hubs and tree giveaways targeted to underserved, heat-stressed neighborhoods.

Outreach was a recurring theme. The collaborative hired 15 community ambassadors and reported participation in more than 100 community events and 18 webinars; staff said those efforts reached 17,869 people and the program will continue for another year. The collaborative also conducted public surveys that showed continued concern about climate change and varying levels of readiness for actions such as electrification and renewable-energy adoption; staff described the findings as a prompt for more-targeted education.

Councilmembers asked about multilingual materials (Freeman said materials are produced in English, Spanish and Tagalog), availability of ambassadors for city events (staff agreed to follow up through the city liaison), and demonstration projects such as cool pavements, shade structures and a proposed xeriscape demonstration garden at Liberty Park. Staff offered to provide the council with outreach toolkits and lists of incentives for energy-efficiency programs and solar rebates available through utilities.

The presentation was for information only; no council action was required. Staff said they will follow up with event scheduling, outreach materials and more detailed inventories on request.