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About the Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP)

The Nelson Resilience Pathway - Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) is a way our community can design a pathway to move into a future less dependant on fossil fuels in response to Climate Change and Peak Oil. It sets out a collective community vision of a powered-down, resilient, relocalised future and then “back casts” to create a tangible and attractive road map of how to get there.

The vision is what our community would look like in 5 years time if we were emitting drastically less CO2, using drastically less non-renewable energy and were well on the way to rebuilding resilience in all critical aspects of life. The idea is to create this vision to be so colorful, compelling and appealing that it is irresistible and we are naturally drawn to it.

We then “back cast” from the vision to list out a practical timeline of the steps, actions milestones, prerequisites, activities and processes that need to be in place for the vision to be achieved.

The EDAP aims to look at most of the key aspects of life including food, transport, energy, health, business, waste, housing etc and how they will function and thrive in a future with less fossil fuels.

The first ever EDAP to be written was in 2005 in Kinsale, a small town of 7,000 people in Ireland. It was awarded the Cook Environmental Forum’s prestigious 2005 Roll of Honour Award and even more importantly was formally adopted in a unanimous vote by Kinsale’s town council at the end of 2005. 

Executive Summary (from Nelson Resilience Pathway)

Climate change is occurring at a speed previously not thought possible and we are running out of time to turn things around. We have a narrow window of opportunity to act before it is too late.
 
Eminent climate scientists are now saying we only have 10 years left to start rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If we don’t, the Earth’s climate is likely to reach a point of no return and any action taken will be too late to avert runaway climate change.
 
“The peaking of world oil production presents... the world with an unprecedented risk management problem.” ...without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.” These are sober thoughts from the Hirsh Report in 2005 to the US Government.
 
We are currently facing an economic, climate and energy crisis. This pathway outlines what actions Nelson needs to take to respond to the climate and energy crisis. Many of these actions will also help the economic situation.
 
The pathway is based on a very short, six year timeframe from 2009-2015 to clearly convey the urgency of the current situation and the need for immediate action.
 
The plan has been developed by Transition Nelson over a period of 12 months building on early work by ASPO Nelson. This is not the work of experts but of concerned Nelson citizens. It is a starting place rather than detailed 5 year plan.
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