City of Chicago Releases Climate Action Plan
The City of Chicago launched its Chicago Climate Action Plan Thursday at the Shedd Aquarium with the backdrop of the city skyline and blue skies. The release is a major milestone for CNT’s climate change work. CNT led the mitigation research team for the Chicago Climate Change Task Force that developed the report.
Since climate change touches every aspect of our city and all of CNT’s program areas, the project involved over 20 CNT staff members. We were excited to be able to provide a solid foundation of data and analysis for Chicago’s Climate Action Plan and look forward to working to transform it from a plan to action. The emissions reduction strategies we have helped develop are truly sustainable solutions that can lower the cost of living and doing business in Chicago while making this a better city to live and work in.
CNT developed a greenhouse gas inventory for Chicago in 2000 and 2005, which allowed us to understand better where Chicago’s emissions come from. Chicago emitted a total of 34.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2000, which is 12 tons per person. We found that 70% of those emissions are from energy use, including electricity and natural gas consumption. Transportation was the second largest source of emissions, accounting for 21% in 2000. The remaining emissions come from waste, wastewater, non-energy emissions from industrial processes, and the use of greenhouse gases in products, such as air conditioners.
We also projected Chicago’s emissions out to 2020 and 2050. If Chicago takes no action to address its climate impact, its emissions could grow to 39.3 MMTCO2e in 2020. We worked with the Task Force to help set a goal of reducing emissions to 24.2 MMTCO2e in 2020 – an amount that is 25% below 1990 levels and 15.1 MMTCO2e below the ‘business as usual’ scenario.
To meet this reduction target will require action in every sector of Chicago, including residents, businesses, institutions, and government. CNT worked with the City to solicit emissions reduction strategies from these stakeholders. We received hundreds of suggestions and boiled them down into a portfolio of feasible, effective, and sustainable strategies for Chicago. We then analyzed 33 strategies both quantitatively and qualitatively to determine emission reduction potentials, the nature and scale of the programs and policies necessary, similar current activities underway in Chicago and the region that could be built on, examples of successful programs from other areas, and implementation opportunities and barriers. These strategies evolved to form the basis of the City’s Climate Action Plan.
Some of the strategies are things we each can do individually, such as walking and taking transit. Many others are programs and investments that we will have to work together to accomplish, such as stabilizing public transit funding and building high speed rail. We are already working to implement some of the strategies, such as developing programs to help building owners more easily retrofit their buildings to use less energy and water and save on utility bills. The strategies will require hard work and innovation, but can generate measurable benefits for Chicago in terms of greenhouse gas reductions, economic opportunity and more.
It is our intention to make our work available to others to serve as a model for the type of comprehensive emission reduction plan cities can undertake. Our methods and results are overviewed in the Summary Report and in the full 267 page report. The City’s Climate Action Plan can be found at www.chicagoclimateaction.org.
