Mayor Richard Daley faced a barrage of distinctly pointed questions about his environmental record Tuesday on Capitol Hill as he testified about his city’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) seized upon a story in Monday’s Tribune that detailed how the City of Chicago has fallen short on its pledge, made in 2001, to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Sensenbrenner hammered Daley and asserted that emissions trading programs — a key piece of Chicago’s effort — are too costly.
Chicago is a charter member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, a greenhouse gas emissions trading cooperative. The city, along with the exchange’s other members, agreed to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 1 percent a year from 2003 to 2006 and 2 percent a year from 2007 to 2010. The reductions were to be calculated from a baseline that averaged emissions for each exchange participant from 1998 to 2001.
Last year, the Tribune reported, the city’s emissions were 10 percent higher than the baseline. Not what everybody had in mind.
Daley, getting roasted in Washington for this, tried to deflect criticism to the messenger. “Remember, you can’t believe everything you read in the newspaper about a public official.” But Sensenbrenner wasn’t buying that argument. He rightly pointed out that the Tribune story was based on the city’s own figures.
The mayor is miffed at the Tribune for reporting the, um, inconvenient truths about the city’s performance. But this page is offering him encouragement in return.
The Chicago Climate Exchange is an innovative attempt to respond to global warming. The city’s struggles show that changing technologies, habits and behaviors isn’t easy. But it’s still necessary. Motorola, DuPont, Safeway, Ford, the City of Chicago and the other members of the climate exchange agree on that. The city has fallen well short of its goals, but it has the right vision.
