Climate News
Thursday, January 6th, 2011
Leading environmental groups released a set of 20 questions for the city’s mayoral candidates. Photo credit ELPC
Seventeen leading environmental groups met today in downtown Chicago to release their Green Growth Platform, a set of 20 environmental questions posed to the city’s mayoral candidates that will help inform Chicago voters about where the candidates stand on important environmental issues facing the city. View the Candidates’ answers to the Green Growth Platform ››
Given that Chicago is the third largest city in the country and has a reputation of being “green,” it is crucial that this city of 3 million continues to be a leader in sustainability and pursue green initiatives that other cities across the nation adopt as their own. Read more »
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Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
Sustainable development is economic development. That was the mantra when CNT put together a package of 22 policy recommendations for Chicago’s next mayor. The Mayoral Playbook makes the case for how Chicago’s next leaders can apply sustainable development principles to strengthen the city’s economy.
“Investing in a Better Chicago” argues that investing in strategies that make the city more sustainable will also make the economy more productive and resilient. The report calls for increased energy conservation, improved transportation options, prioritized development around transit nodes, and wide deployment of green infrastructure. All would save money, create jobs, conserve resources, and combat climate change. Read more »
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Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
Now that Congress has failed to pass strong climate legislation this year, the Obama Administration has the opportunity to demonstrate its leadership and re-tool its role in supporting state and local governments in creating better solutions to address climate change.
To respond to this missed opportunity at enacting a comprehensive climate policy, the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) has drafted a fresh list of recommendations that President Obama can implement in the near term. As PCAP Executive Director William Becker, put it, “Congress has passed the ball back to President Obama. He should run with it.” Read more »
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Friday, July 23rd, 2010
News that the Senate leadership in Congress has decided to indefinitely postpone passing comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year is tremendously disappointing. Though climate change regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, states and regions are still moving forward, many viewed this summer as the best opportunity for Congress to pass legislation that would create a national framework to transform our energy system and cut global warming emissions.
Today’s news from Capitol Hill underscores why CNT’s work is more important than ever. Since the day CNT opened its doors more than 30 years ago, our philosophy is that change comes at the neighborhood level. And although it is crucial for the United States to implement a federal-level strategy to improve our energy system and reduce our global warming pollution, many of the actions required to meet any national climate goal will occur at the local level. That means every community can and should continue to move forward and do its part. Read more »
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Monday, July 12th, 2010
The White House Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force is holding a series of meetings to “hear local and regional ideas, questions and concerns about climate change impacts and to describe Federal planning efforts already underway.” Three (in Florida, Oregon and Hawaii) have occurred. On Thursday July 15, 2010, the Chicago meeting will be held at the Metcalfe Federal Building from 1-5 PM. CNT President Scott Bernstein will participate in the “Great Lakes Urban Infrastructure Panel” at 3:30 PM.
This session, organized and co-hosted by the EPA and HUD, will focus on local and regional ideas and concerns about climate change impacts in the Great Lakes region, including impacts to urban infrastructure and the Great Lakes ecosystem. Read more »
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Thursday, July 1st, 2010
CNT and its affiliates, CNT Energy and I-GO, were present at the opening of “Climate Change,” an exhibit organized by the American Museum of Natural History in collaboration with the Field Museum and several other museums. The exhibit includes the Chicago Climate Action Room that highlights the Chicago Climate Action Plan. Several local organizations were invited to produce a panel about their work addressing climate change. CNT’s panel shows what the public can do to reduce their emissions while saving money. Our panel focuses on energy reduction at home and on the road as well as ways to green communities. Read more »
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Monday, May 17th, 2010
Two important climate change actions occurred at the federal level recently. The much-anticipated Kerry-Lieberman climate legislation, the “American Power Act”, was released while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a “Tailoring Rule” that sets thresholds for regulating greenhouse gas emissions from large sources, such as power plants—the next step in a process of regulating greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act that was launched by a Supreme Court decision in 2007. Read more »
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
"Chicago’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2000", copyright CNT, 2010.
When CNT set out to inventory Chicago’s greenhouse gas emissions, our goal was to give the Mayor’s Task Force on Climate Change the information it needed to better understand where Chicago’s emissions come from and to establish a baseline for comparison in future years. In addition to that, we created a portfolio of emissions reductions measures to better understand the scale and scope of actions that needed to be taken to meet the city’s emissions reduction targets.
Beyond the City-commissioned research, our broader goal is to make our climate change analysis transparent and available for cities around the world to take action on reducing their impact on climate change. Soon this research will be available in the Journal of Great Lakes Research and it is our belief that the valuable information in this peer-reviewed, scientific journal can serve as a useful tool for cities to use a model.
Read more »
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Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
Despite recent announcements from the Senate leadership that climate change legislation will be put off until spring of 2010 and questions about the fate of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, CNT is not discouraged about the future of climate action in the U.S. Yes, it is frustrating that Senate action may not occur until a year after the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act in June 2009, and that the Copenhagen talks may result in just an agreement to create a future agreement—rather than binding targets. But global warming is a problem we have created over many years and we are not going to solve it overnight.
CNT has been directly working on climate change issues for a decade and a half and indirectly working to address the problems that impact climate for our entire 31-year history as an organization. Despite recent setbacks, climate action is more on track today that it has been at any time since the Kyoto Protocol was signed (and maybe even before then, since the U.S. never ratified Kyoto).
Why such climate optimism despite the doom and gloom in the news? Many positive advancements are occurring that are not necessarily making the headlines. These examples are paving the way to not only a more definitive climate policy but to a broader awareness to the behavior changes we must take to reduce our greenhouse gas impact.
Read more »
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Thursday, September 24th, 2009
“Cities can really benefit from each other’s experience taking action on climate change,” states Julia Parzen, author of a new publication, “Lessons Learned: Creating the Chicago Climate Action Plan.”
This report, which documents the Plan’s process up until its public release on September 19, 2008, summarizes key lessons learned and provides a timeline and observations about each step. The City of Chicago benefited from the work of other cities as it created the Chicago Climate Action Plan. Because of funding from the Clinton Climate Initiative, Chicago was able to document the three phases—research, planning, and implementation—of the Chicago Climate Action Plan process. The report is being co-released by the Global Philanthropy Partnership, the City of Chicago, and ICLEI.
Read more »
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