Climate plan progress report planned for next year

The City of Evanston plans to release a report detailing the progress of the city’s 2018 Climate Action Resilience Plan goals sometime next June, Sustainability and Resilience Manager Cara Pratt told the CARP implementation task force Wednesday evening.

The task force meeting continued discussion about how to structure the report and what it should accomplish regarding the dozens of action items and goals laid out in the 2018 climate plan.

Task force members largely agreed that the plan, now seven years old, should be reevaluated and updated, saying several goals and actions are now dated or weren’t specific enough.

Pratt said the 2026 report is aimed at addressing how far the city has come thus far, since 2025 was a target year for several goals in the plan.

One of the primary objectives outlined in the plan was to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with a target of reducing city emissions by 50% by 2025. Progress on that goal and many others will be part of the next report, Pratt said.

In September, Pratt told the board that as of 2023, the city had reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 44%, and over 50% through energy saved by EPA renewable energy certificates. That meant the city was on track to meet the key goal by the end of 2025.

“We feel accountable to the community that there are things that should be accomplished by 2025,” Pratt said of the CARP goals Wednesday.

Some of the other goals by 2025 included in the 2018 CARP plan were:

• Install LED lighting for all lighting on city properties, street lights and traffic lights
• Install 100% LED lighting on all city projects, facilities and infrastructure
• Increase community waste diversion by 50% from 2017 levels
• Reduce building energy consumption by 25% from 2005 levels
• 75% renewable electricity supply for all Evanston energy accounts
• Eliminate petroleum-based, single-use products through phasing out the use of single-use plastics

Many of the goals likely haven’t been fully met, but the CARP task force said seeing where the city stands as of 2025 will be key to planning what the city should do moving forward to continue making progress on the climate goals.

Part of that includes working with new City Council members, board member Jerri Garl said.

“One of our allies, hopefully, is City Council,” Garl said, adding she hopes the task force and larger Environment Board can “engage them more fully,” concerned the city is making decisions that are “in contrast to our goals.”

The board seemed to agree that part of moving the city’s goals beyond the litany of plans the city continues to create is to get the new council to “reaffirm CARP.”

“I could imagine members of this group going to ward meetings or making sure we know who’s in which ward,” board member Wendy Pollock said. “[And] meet with council members and make sure they understand the history or purpose of this plan.” 

Part of the previous City Council, and the new council’s draft goals are “Implementing the city’s Climate Action and Resilience Plan.”