City Council candidates need to address climate change
At last evening’s Eden Prairie City Council candidate forum (Thursday, Sept. 17, sponsored by the League of Women Voters), the candidates were asked to offer their priorities on policies and actions to shape the City of Eden Prairie’s 2050 Comprehensive Plan, as required under Minnesota state law.
Responses from the candidates included topics like more affordable housing and protecting green space. However, it was disappointing that not one candidate said anything about the need for building more climate resilience and reducing our community’s carbon footprint.
Just this past week, ExxonMobil announced (MT Newswires, Sept. 17, 2026) to the public its expectation that global carbon dioxide emissions will hit 30 billion metric tons by 2050, which is almost triple the level needed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
The same day that story broke, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that the world’s “water savings bank” (all the freshwater held in rivers, lakes, groundwater, snow, ice, soil moisture and inside plants and trees) was 42% below normal across the world in 2025.
WMO went on to say that “global terrestrial water storage has shown a declining trend since 2014.”
The point is, global warming is real; it’s caused by our collective actions and inactions. Things will not get better on their own.
Our city does have a Climate Action Plan, which was enacted in 2020. While steps have been taken under this plan, we need to hear a commitment from our candidates that they will lead on dealing with this existential threat.
Greg Olson, Eden Prairie