Climate Action and Resilience Plan (CARP)

In 2018, Evanston enacted its Climate Action and Resilience Plan (CARP), laying out a number of ambitious goals, including full carbon neutrality by 2050. Our community is rightfully proud of this, but we also must view it as merely one step. In fact, the hardest work lies ahead: the search for truly equitable ways to meet or exceed these goals will be a multi-decade, community-wide project. In order to make that project a success, the City must:

• Prioritize the implementation of CARP by requiring City government to assess all decisions against the CARP goals and leading our community embrace the tradeoffs needed for successful implementation.
• Prioritize CARP in its budget and procurement procedures, including the level of funding for the Office of Sustainability.
• Coordinate with school districts, Northwestern, and large employers to ensure that these major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions are fully committed to the CARP goals.
• Establish additional clear and measurable goals and deadlines toward CARP implementation, create and regularly update an online dashboard where the public can monitor progress toward these goals, and establish a system of accountability for missed goals.
• Institutionalize a mechanism by which the many constituencies in our community that are committed to this work — including academic, policy, activist, and research groups — participate in CARP implementation. Among other things, this mechanism would:
  • Establish standing meetings between key community leaders and staff.
  • Constantly widen the net to ensure that input is coming from all parts of our community.
• Prioritize engaging and organizing communities of color as the City moves forward with CARP implementation, given that communities of color are experiencing the harshest consequences of climate change.
• Use government projects, including rooftop solar on municipal buildings and schools, as demonstration opportunities to encourage more private sector steps toward CARP compliance.
• Work with state partners to ensure that as the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA) moves through the legislature in Springfield, its provisions support CARP implementation and that we are ready to capitalize on these opportunities as soon as they are enacted, including:
  • Job training
  • New tools to finance clean energy projects
  • Rooftop solar projects on public school buildings
• Develop and implement an approach to sustainable investing that includes, but is not limited to, divestment from fossil fuel companies.
• Deploy strategies to integrate environmental education and climate education curricula in schools, perhaps utilizing the Ecology Center and public library system.

Environmental Justice

Communities of color are experiencing the harshest consequences of climate change but, unfortunately, that is merely one of many examples of the disparate impacts of environmental degradation. Black and brown people have borne the brunt of respiratory ailments caused by air pollution, physical and cognitive harms associated with exposure to lead, inequitable access to open space, and more. Here in Evanston, the air and noise pollution resulting from the waste transfer station on Church Street is a clear instance of this phenomenon.

Last fall, City Council adopted an environmental justice resolution articulating a welcome commitment to tackle this problem. To repair existing wrongs and create true environmental justice, we must:

• Develop a public engagement mechanism that ensures the most affected communities are leading the discussion.
• Use the process described above to formulate a strong definition of Environmental Justice Area, and create and maintain a public map of such areas.
• Establish a clear plan to mitigate the inequities present in Environmental Justice Areas; this mitigation plan must be a part of all public communication about the Environmental Justice Areas.
• Prioritize Environmental Justice Areas when making decisions about infrastructure projects, economic development, and code revisions.

Transportation and Mobility

Transportation is an urgent issue for sustainability; this sector contributes almost 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s not only that. Mobility is a fundamental component of liberty and it’s critical for economic justice as well since it’s impossible to hold down a job you can’t physically get to. Moreover, active transportation modes like walking and biking are good for public health and build stronger neighborhoods where people know one another and social bonds are tighter.

Across the globe, there has been a recent move toward the concept of the “15-minute city,” a city in which anyone can access all of the most basic day-to-day needs, including a neighborhood school, food, open green space like a public park, and other basic necessities within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from home. This vision is about more than just environmental sustainability; it’s about designing our built environment around our most basic and fundamental human needs.

In order to provide for a transportation system that enables us to meet our climate goals while additionally providing these numerous other benefits, the City of Evanston must:

• Leverage existing upcoming capital projects on Church St., Chicago Ave., and Oakton St. to maximize walkability, bike safety and convenience, and transit access.
• Make transportation decisions that are optimal to the city as a whole, rather than individual wards.
• Pursue the electrification of buses and other government fleets
  • Through public school districts
  • By holding the CTA accountable to achieve its stated 2030 electrification goal
  • By pushing Pace to recognize that the climate crisis demands full electrification, rather than a shift to compressed natural gas (CNG)
• Establish a robust network of electric vehicle charging stations on public property.
• Conduct a sidewalk gap analysis to determine necessary upgrades and begin work on those projects, with priority given to areas whose sidewalk inadequacies reflect a history of racism in Evanston.
• Continue to expand bike lanes and bike safety to form complete networks.
• Prioritize access to schools when planning walkability and bike safety.
• Plan tree-planting in such a way as to enhance the appeal of walking, while also protecting pedestrians from some adverse weather, providing a buffer from traffic, and removing harmful particulates from the air.

Eliminating Carbon Emissions from Buildings

Buildings contribute a significant share of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, because of their longevity, we must take carbon ramifications of new construction extremely seriously. On the other hand, because most buildings in Evanston are not new (not to mention because of the very carbon-intensive nature of the construction process itself), we need to find equitable ways to retrofit and decarbonize existing buildings.

To achieve this, Evanston must:

• Move toward a net-zero building code.
• Take a series of steps over time to eliminate carbon emissions from existing buildings, including incentives and, eventually, mandates that are designed to counteract existing cost inequities, including:
  • The upgrade of HVAC systems and major equipment in commercial buildings.
  • A shift away from natural gas.
• Given that just 16 industrial buildings account for 35% of Evanston’s electricity usage, implement a program — featuring clear transparency, benchmarks to track progress, and public accountability — to target the largest polluters.
• Make better use of state programs, as well as programs run by utility companies, that support weatherization, energy efficiency, and more, especially as they are likely to be expanded in CEJA.
  • Utilize the massive organizing capacity among Evanston environmentalists to make all residents aware of these opportunities.
  • Educate landlords about the benefit of these programs, both for the long-term value of their asset but also because of the decreased rent default risk when tenants’ utility bills decrease.

Protecting Lake Michigan and Ensuring Access to Clean Water

Access to safe, clean drinking water is a human right that any municipality has a moral responsibility to protect. Evanston is in a special position, with miles of lakefront that are both a treasure and a sacred responsibility. In addition, we have aging infrastructure to deliver clean water to residents as well as to handle stormwater and sewage, leaving us with critical work to do to ensure proper stewardship of this critical resource.

To accomplish this work, the City must:

• Establish a clear policy that lake access is public and universal, not dependent upon proximity of residence or ability to pay.
• Demand transparency and binding long-term commitments from Northwestern regarding lake access and stewardship.
• Assess the safety of the sand utilized on Evanston beaches by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from the Outboard Marine Corporation superfund site.
• Move toward the replacement of lead service lines and ensure that routine monitoring of residential drinking water for lead is equitable and representative of all Evanston neighborhoods.
• Enact water shutoff policies that ensure no resident is ever without water because of an inability to pay.
• Enact science-based and ecologically sustainable solutions to the problem of lakefront erosion.
• Mitigate the harmful effects of extreme storms, including combined sewer overflow and basement flooding, by investing in green infrastructure and decreasing impermeable areas, as well as by designing tree-planting plans to intercept stormwater.
  • Utilize a broad definition of green infrastructure that includes not only traditional projects but also natural options including expansion of the urban tree canopy and green spaces, as well as nature-based stormwater solutions.
  • Explore the separation of clean water and stormwater fees to create an incentive for residents to move toward permeable services.

A Comprehensive Waste-Reduction Strategy

Waste reduction is a critical component of a climate strategy for two reasons. First of all, by facilitating reuse of materials, it enables us to avoid carbon-intensive manufacturing and transportation processes. Secondly, it diverts the flow of organic materials into landfills where they can decompose into greenhouse gases.

We have the tools to do this, but to do so we need to change our attitudes and habits. More and more communities are talking about becoming “circular cities,” or cities that eliminate waste, keep goods in use, and regenerate natural systems. To do this, the City must:

• Make it easier to recycle and reuse through refinement of municipal services as well as public education initiatives.
• Minimize food waste by emulating recent progress in France:
  • Implementing new regulations for restaurants and grocery stores.
  • Pairing restaurants and grocery stores with nonprofits working on food insecurity and food waste.
  • Giving residents tools to properly sort their food waste.
• Expand composting by emulating San Francisco’s successful program that combined a phased-in system of mandates with a program to give residents and businesses the tools they needed to make it work, including access to modern facilities, financial incentives, and community engagement.
• Partner with Evanston Rebuilding Warehouse to use large municipal and nonprofit projects as models for the community to learn about deconstruction options.
• Enhance compliance with the Cook County Construction and Demolition (C&D) diversion ordinance by tracking data both to identify instances of non-compliance and to improve the market for reused and recycled C&D material.
• After full compliance is achieved, pass a strengthened C&D ordinance, modeled after Portland’s deconstruction ordinance.