Chicago nears declaring climate emergency
Aldermen call for joint effort between city, county, state, federal government
State Rep. Ann Williams and Chicago Alderman George Cardenas speak before Monday’s committee meeting. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
CHICAGO — Chicago aldermen moved to declare a climate emergency Monday.
The Committee on Environmental Protection & Energy advanced a resolution declaring a climate emergency, sending it on to the full City Council for final passage next week.
“We know with our own eyes that something is very abnormal,” said Alderman George Cardenas, chairman of the committee. He cited not only persistent flooding across the city and lakeshore erosion stemming from recent years of record rainfall, but worsening weather extremes around the world such as increasingly extreme hurricanes, blizzards, and droughts, as well as rising sea levels that threaten cities like Bangkok, Shanghai, and Miami.
“We cannot continue to go the normal way — things as usual,” Cardenas added. “This is why we are declaring a climate emergency today.”
“Really, the question is what can we do immediately?” Ald. Matt Martin, lead sponsor of the resolution, declared. Although he pointed to the Trump administration as “a group of climate-change deniers,” he added, “It’s not just acknowledging the facts. It’s about putting together a set of solutions that reflect the scope and the gravity of what we’re facing.”
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It’s not just acknowledging the facts. It’s about putting together a set of solutions that reflect the scope and the gravity of what we’re facing.”
Alderman Matt Martin (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
While the resolution did not mention specific legislation meant to address climate change, supporters said it sets the stage for political action.
“I think we should have a plan ready to go,” Cardenas said. “Nothing like urgency to make things happen.”
Alderman Daniel La Spata insisted, “If we call it a crisis, we have to treat it as a crisis.”
The committee threw its weight behind the Clean Energy Jobs Act in the General Assembly and welcomed the bill’s lead sponsor, state Rep. Ann Williams of Chicago. “We cannot do this alone,” she said, backed by Cook County Commissioner Bridget Degnen of Chicago.
Tom Balanoff, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1, also backed CEJA “because of its emphasis on working people and equal access to well-paying jobs.
“Fortunately, most of our members, including myself, believe in science,” he added. “We need to act now.”
Balanoff and Alderman Brendan Reilly of Chicago’s downtown area both touted CEJA’s provisions lowering electricity rates, and Reilly also backed measures such as creating infrastructure with power stations to charge electric cars. La Spata advocated changing the Chicago building code to demand more energy efficiency and other green initiatives.
“Here locally, our recycling rates are horrible,” said Cardenas, suggesting that too is an area where the council can take action, along with requiring plastics to be reusable or at least recyclable, and going to electric trucks for city departments.
Martin backed an all-electric fleet of city buses, too, along with simply planting more trees.
“The scope is modest,” he said, “but in the aggregate I think it starts to get into things that are necessary.”
Backers claimed the support of Gov. Pritzker for CEJA and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for the climate resolution.
Jacky Grimshaw, a longtime city political figure who’s now vice president of government affairs for the Center for Neighborhood Technology, said it wasn’t just about Chicago’s lakefront hurting locally. She pointed to how vast swaths of the city’s South and West sides suffer under flooding from heavy rains due to obsolete drainage systems. She said minority communities had relatively little responsibility for generating global warming and climate change, but unfairly bore the brunt of the effects.
She pointed to a Climate Action Plan adopted by the Daley administration in 2008, but she admitted, “We started, and then we had a pause. So we need to re-energize that.” Others insisted that plan couldn’t just be dusted off and readopted, but a new, more urgent pace of climate reforms is necessary.
Martin also backed a separate Department of Environment in city government, to focus on climate-change issues and streamline possible solutions.
“Really,” he said, “it’s holding ourselves accountable.”