The village of Sodus is included in the latest round of communities to achieve certification as part of New York State’s Climate Smart Communities program. The announcement made Friday by the Governor signifies meaningful steps being taken to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change taken by 19 local governments that met the criteria to be recognized as leaders in local climate action.
To achieve Climate Smart Community certification, communities accumulate points for planning and implementation actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve community resilience to what the state says is “the worsening impacts of climate change.” Recently, 18 new communities successfully met the criteria to be recognized as leaders at the bronze level, including Sodus.
Established in 2009, the interagency Climate Smart Communities program provides guidance and technical support to local governments to take locally-driven climate action. The first step to becoming a Climate Smart Community is to register by pledging to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. To date, 377 local governments representing more than 9.4 million New Yorkers have adopted the Climate Smart Communities pledge. A certification program was launched in 2014 to document and celebrate the accomplishments of communities taking climate action. The addition of these new communities brings New York’s total number of certified Climate Smart Communities to 118 – 10 at the silver level and 108 at the bronze level.
