With the passing of a controversial plan designed to fight climate change, Kane County now has a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
At the Kane County Board meeting on Tuesday, board members voted 13-9 to approve the Climate Action Implementation Plan after heavy discussion.
Those in favor of the plan argued that it was a necessary step in slowing climate change and keeping the environment clean.
“If we want to leave our area better and have a better quality of life, not only for our cities that we live in but the county and the state, we need to start something. We need to be proactive,” said Bill Tarver, District 10 County Board member.
The plan recommends actions across eight categories with the goal of reducing the county’s greenhouse gas emissions and increasing resilience to the effects of climate change. Each category has its own goals, which feed into the plan’s overall goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 25% below 2019 levels by 2030 and full carbon neutrality by 2050.
A carbon neutral community is one that removes or offsets the same amount of carbon dioxide that it produces, according to the plan. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas and is produced when fossil fuels and other biological substances are burned, among other ways.
Those against the plan argued that it was unnecessary and threatened the freedoms of Kane County citizens, despite reassurances that the plan would not mandate anything. District 15 County Board member David Young said he had problems with every part of the plan.
According to the plan, Kane County has already been reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in the last several years. Young said that, if the county is already “going in the right direction,” then why should it have “all of these policies put in place that’s going to cost taxpayers money and push businesses out of Kane County.”
In addition to his issues with a number of specific actions recommended by the plan, Young also said he did not trust the data presented in it or the author, environmental consulting company paleBLUEdot. He said the plan was generic, simply adapted for Kane County and often had little to do with the county itself.
Now that the plan is approved, the group that helped put together the plan, which was made up of county staff and other interested parties throughout the county, will meet to choose some “low-hanging fruit” from among the actions recommended by the plan, according to District 4 County Board member Mavis Bates.
Bates is also the chair of the board’s Energy and Environmental Committee and a champion of the plan.
Kane County, in a group with other counties and communities in the Chicago suburbs, has applied for $114 million through the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, she said in a phone call on Wednesday.
The funds would go toward supporting the Climate Action Implementation Plan, if the coalition is successful in its grant application, but the application also gave Kane County the chance to figure out which actions will give the most “bang for their buck” — that is, which actions will reduce the most greenhouse gas emissions for the lowest cost, she said.
The Kane County Climate Action Team meeting, currently planned for mid-August, will go through each of the plan’s eight sections to decide which actions will help get the ball rolling, according to Bates. She said the plan, in addition to guiding actions, will also be a good moral support as the county continues to make efforts to improve the environment.
To learn more about the plan, go to the county’s website at www.kanecountyil.gov/sustainability/Pages/Climate-Action-Implementation-Plan.aspx
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
