Public consultations are set to begin on a draft Metro Vancouver plan billed as the region's first growth strategy that addresses climate change.

David Suzuki Foundation climate-change specialist Ian Bruce has endorsed the document, called “Metro Vancouver 2040: Shaping Our Future”, as the most visionary and ambitious plan so far in the province, if not the entire country.

“Seventy-five percent of greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada are emitted within municipal boundaries,” Bruce told the Straight. “About half of those emissions are influenced or controlled by municipal-government decisions in the form of how communities are designed.”

The plan, which will replace the Livable Region Strategic Plan adopted in 1996, seeks to confine urban growth within an “urban containment boundary”, protect existing industrial land, preserve conservation and recreation lands, develop “complete communities”, and support sustainable transportation options.

The first public meeting will be held on Wednesday (April 22) at UBC Robson Square (800 Robson Street) at 7 p.m.