BRECKENRIDGE — At the end of the Breckenridge Town Council regular work session Oct. 8, Mayor Eric Mamula announced that Breckenridge will host the next Mountain Towns 2030 Net Zero Summit, a conference he and other council members attended in Salt Lake City this year.
The conference is designed to bring mountain towns together to set the goal, and find ways to meet it, of achieving net zero emissions by 2030. The summit invites leaders from mountain communities, including local government officials, nonprofit organizations and related businesses. The conference features speakers, panels and workshops that help mountain communities set actionable steps to achieve the goal.
Mamula met with the mayor of Salt Lake City and said he wanted to hold everyone accountable to stick to this goal by having the conference annually. During the work session, Mamula said Breckenridge would host the conference in 2020 in order to keep the momentum going. The conference will be scheduled for late September or early October.
“It was a really cool event, and we want to do something similar but with our own specific twist on it, which would require the involvement of everyone,” Mamula said. “I think we would have really good support from the community.”
Citing the small populations of mountain communities, Mamula said a major takeaway from the conference was that mountain towns are not going to solve the issues of climate change on their own. Yet, these towns each bring in tens of thousands of visitors — or more — annually, and the they can be inspired to replicate the effort in their own potentially bigger cities and towns, he said.
Council members also voiced their support to name council member Wendy Wolfe as the co-chair of the upcoming conference.