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Columbia Climate Action Task Force Has First Meeting

Sustainability and the environment are on the agenda for a local task force this year.

The Mayor’s Task Force on Climate Action and Adaptation Planning met for the first time Tuesday to establish environmental goals for 2018. The Task Force is designed to advise city council and the mayor on policies that will help protect the Columbia environment.

Mayor Brian Treece says that Columbia citizens can expect public outreach and consistent updates.

“This Advisory Committee, that represents key sectors in Columbia’s economy, is really going be developing those climate action goals. They’ve got a robust public engagement plan that will involve town hall meetings and all of those project deliverables are going to be updated on a monthly basis.”

The members of the committee represent various environmental backgrounds ranging from law to public health and will be working to recommend new city policies. The task force elected Jay Hasheider, a member of the Water and Light advisory board, as chair of the committee during the meeting.

Task Force member Aimee Davenport says the goal of the committee is to make long-term improvements.

“It’s our hope that whatever plan we come up with and is ultimately adopted by the city council will lead to those improvements in the long term.”

Issues the committee will address include reducing Greenhouse gas emissions and increasing community usage of renewable energy.

Noah Taborda is a Sports Broadcasting Journalism major who hopped on the short flight from Chicago to hone his trade at the University of Missouri. He hopes to cover a meaningful moment or two in his future career.