USA TODAY International Edition
Mayors to sign Chicago climate pact
Big cities try to fill the void after Trump pulls out of Paris accord
CHICAGO – President Trump ditched the Paris Agreement, but dozens of U.S. mayors are set to sign their own climate accord vowing to do their part in cutting the nation’s greenhouse emissions.
USA TODAY has obtained a draft of the Chicago Charter, an agreement that at least 36 U.S. cities are slated to sign Tuesday at the North American Climate Summit in Chicago.
The agreement lays out the framework for how some of the country’s municipalities plan to reach goals to reduce greenhouse emission and monitor each others progress — objectives similar to what the Paris international climate pact strives to achieve.
“Each mayor is going to sign their own customized plan on how they are going to achieve the 2025 Paris Agreement,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is hosting the climate summit, told USA TODAY. “We’re all going to get to the same destination in our own individual way. It’s designed in such a way that it’s measurable.”
Among the highlights of what cities — including New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington — plan to do are to reduce greenhouse gas emission by up to 28% and track each city’s goals. The results will be made public.
Trump, who has expressed skepticism about the scientific consensus on climate change and more generally chafes at the notion of international agreements, announced in June that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the climate accord.
His decision led many state and local leaders to vow to take action.
Many big-city American mayors pilloried Trump as being shortsighted. The president criticized the climate accord, which sets the goal of holding global warming below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, as an example of a deal “that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.” Technically, the U.S. can’t give notice of its departure from the non-binding agreement until November 2019 under terms agreed upon when the pact was negotiated in 2015. Syria announced last month that it would join the accord, leaving the U.S. as the only country out of the agreement once it can withdraw.
Since Trump’s announcement, more than 380 mayors — whose cities collectively include about 68 million residents — have vowed to uphold the goals of Paris. Former president Obama, who signed the Paris Agreement, is to address the summit Tuesday.
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski said that the Chicago Charter is more than symbolic and will help municipal leaders track and share information on what efforts are having the most impact on reducing carbon emissions.
Although cities leaders believe their collective efforts can help the U.S. meet the previously agreed upon benchmark, Biskupski said that the municipal officials need federal commitment on stemming climate change.
“This leadership role has evolved very quickly because it has had to,” Biskupski said. “It does not mean that at some point we’re not going to needs some help from the federal government. I believe we will. But in the meantime, we have to make progress and we have to have to make sure we’re tracking this progress, so that we can meet these significant goals.”
Even before the Paris Agreement was hatched, officials in many large American cities were framing the need to cut carbon emissions to keep their economies competitive.
In Salt Lake City, officials have set a goal of relying on renewable energy for 50% of municipal operations by 2020.
In Chicago, Emanuel says the city is already about 40% toward meeting its 2025 goals. The city closed its last coal plants in 2012, and has retrofitted more than 54 million square feet of office space to make it more energy efficient.
We’re all going to get to the same destination in our own individual way.”
Chicago Mayor Rham Emanuel