Climate Action Plan

With the help of UNH Sustainability Fellows, Durham completed its first Climate Action Plan (CAP) in 2022. This plan outlines mitigation and adaptation actions, measures how much each activity will contribute to Durham meeting its mitigation and adaptation goals, and include a plan for implementing the actions. Mitigation actions focus on reducing Durham’s greenhouse gas emissions, while adaptation actions focus on adapting Durham to climate change impacts.

Durham's 2024-2026 UNH Sustainability Fellow, Sophie Goodwin, assisted the town in drafting and submitting the 2025-2030 CAP which can be found below.

Baseline Assessment and Goal Setting

• Greenhouse Gas Inventory: Durham completed a Community-Wide Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the year 2019. Durham’s highest emissions are occurring in the built environment and transportation sectors, while land (largely from Durham’s forests and trees) contributed the most to removals. Former Sustainability Fellow Erin Dennehy completed a 2019, 2021, and 2022 Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report in 2024, which can be found below. 
• Mitigation Targets: Durham has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 42.8% of 2019 levels by 2030, and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The CAP will outline mitigation actions that will keep Durham on track towards meeting these targets.
• Risk and Vulnerability Assessment: Durham’s 2017 Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan outlined Durham’s high, moderate, and low vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change. Durham’s highest vulnerabilities included inland flooding, severe winter weather, and extended power failure. The 2022 Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) and Climate Adaptation Master Plan were finalized concurrently as part of the town's latest risk and vulnerability assessment based on Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) guidance, and were approved in March 2023 by the Town Council and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 
• Adaptation Goals: Similar to Durham’s emission reduction targets, Durham is creating risk reduction goals based on the findings of the 2022 HMP and Climate Adaptation Master Plan. The Adaptation portion i.e. preparing for and managing the risks of climate change impacts of CAP were reported to GCOM in April 2023.