Regional climate alliance making plans - The Republic
Regional climate alliance making plans - The Republic News
City officials are hoping to move forward this coming year with a regional climate alliance involving the cities of Columbus and Bloomington and the town of Nashville.
The bi-partisan alliance, called Project 46, was launched in March and seeks to address the region’s shared challenges and opportunities related to climate change. The project is named after State Road 46, which links the three communities together.
Earlier this month, members of the project’s steering committee met for the second time and agreed to hire a consulting firm to support the initiative and set specific goals for 2024, including a public greenhouse gas inventory, officials said.
The steering committee includes Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton and Nashville Town Manager Sandie Jones, as well as representatives from businesses and community organizations, including Cummins Inc., Indiana University, Tasus Corp., Indiana University Health and the Heritage Fund.
The initiative is expected to continue despite Lienhoop and Hamilton leaving office at the end of the year, officials said. Columbus Mayor-elect Mary Ferdon also attended the meeting earlier this month.
“While there is among the communities a shared desire to move forward with respect to reducing our carbon footprint, there is not a lot of staff that is available to do this,” Lienhoop said. “It’s also something that none of us have attempted before. So, we felt the need to reach out to hire a consulting firm that will help us better define the agenda so we can focus on what it is we really want to do, and then provide a way to keep us on track and on task.”
The committee has developed a preliminary list of priority climate actions, including generating renewable energy, building energy efficiency and electrification, increasing the number of electric fleet and public transit vehicles, improving electric vehicle charging infrastructure and reducing waste, officials said.
However, no specific timetable or projects have been set at this point, though officials tentatively expect to complete the greenhouse gas inventory sometime in 2024, said Jenna Pesano, sustainability administrator at the Columbus Department of Public Works.
One item that Columbus officials will look at as part of the project is whether the city should electrify the ColumBUS fleet, as well as potentially other city vehicles, Pesano said.
Currently, the steering committee is exploring funding opportunities, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, which provides $5 billion in grants to states and local governments to develop and implement plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other types of air pollution.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has received a $3 million grant through the EPA program. The Steering Committee has provided IDEM with the list of Project 46 priority climate actions and will continue to communicate with IDEM about the next steps
On Dec. 19, the Columbus Board of Public Works approved a resolution supporting Project 46 that included $25,000 — about 50 cents per city resident — for the alliance and authorized Lienhoop to sign a memorandum of understanding with the other communities.
The steering committee is expected to continue meeting quarterly, though no specific date has been set for their next meeting, officials said.
“It’s a great project, and we really want to get the message out of collaboration and how we can make a bigger impact of addressing the challenges (of climate change) than we would on our own,” Pesano said.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”