Daley's city not so 'green' - Mayor adds foliage but high electricity use offsets gains
Daley's city not so 'green' - Mayor adds foliage but high electricity use offsets gains
By Michael Hawthorne
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published June 18, 2007
Mayor Richard Daley vowed six years ago to make Chicago a leader in emerging efforts to fight global warming, but city government is churning out more heat-trapping pollution every year.
As part of his high-profile agenda to transform a gritty, smog-choked metropolis into a tree-lined showcase for green initiatives, Daley enrolled the city in a network of corporations and governments that pledged to curb emissions of greenhouse gases by 4 percent during the last four years. The network, called the Chicago Climate Exchange, is widely seen as a proving ground for a mandatory national system being debated in Congress.
The city pledged in 2001 to meet the target by planting green roofs, buying renewable power and rehabbing buildings to make them more energy-efficient, among other steps. Yet the city's emissions of global warming pollution have soared since then, according to records that the Tribune obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
City officials have had some success reducing the amount of gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas burned by government vehicles and buildings, records show. But those improvements have been more than offset by the city's surging demand for electricity, some of which is generated by burning fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The city's lack of progress highlights how the mayor's environmentally friendly speeches failed to translate into aggressive action at City Hall.
'The mayor's promises'
"Reducing carbon emissions requires people to change the way they do business," said Howard Learner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, which promotes clean energy. "Somebody in the city bureaucracy needs the political capital to follow through on the mayor's promises."
City officials, who would discuss their participation in the exchange only by e-mail, wrote that they are installing new climate-control systems in city buildings that should dramatically reduce electricity usage.
In the absence of federal action, city and state governments across the nation have adopted their own initiatives to deal with emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are accumulating in the atmosphere and raising the Earth's average surface temperature. Many experts think that if steps aren't taken soon to reduce emissions, or at least slow their growth, the planet's climate could change radically.
One of Chicago's contributions was becoming a charter member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, which is based on the idea that capitalism and commodities markets might offer the most effective model to solve the problem. Members include companies such as Motorboat, Dopant, Ford and IBM and governments, including Portland and New Mexico. Daley became honorary chairman.
Each year, exchange members are allotted a number of allowances equal to a ton of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas. They agreed to cut emissions by 1 percent per year from 2003 to 2006, and 2 percent per year from 2007 to 2010.
Members that reduce their pollution can sell the remainder of their greenhouse-gas allowances or keep them in reserve. Members that produce more pollution must return surplus allowances to the exchange or buy more.
According to the exchange in the last three years, members have cut emissions by 90 million tons, an amount equal to the annual emissions of six large coal-fired power plants.
"This is a good example of the kind of innovation that will help us solve our energy and environmental problems," Daley said in 2001, when he announced Chicago would join.
Five years later, records show that emissions of greenhouse gases from city government have increased to more than 1 million tons, 10 percent higher than a baseline of 921,938 tons. The baseline is an average of emissions from 1998 to 2001 the exchange uses to measure future increases and reductions.
So far, the city hasn't been required to buy more greenhouse-gas allowances, but records indicate the allowances the city has on hand are dwindling to the point that taxpayers could be required to make up the difference as early as this year.
Internal e-mails obtained by the Tribune show the city had trouble with the exchanger's requirements early on.
For instance, as Daley traveled around the country giving speeches that touted the city's involvement, staff members at the Department of Environment struggled to gather electricity and fuel bills to verify the city's emissions baseline and annual performance.
"The City of Chicago has a great deal of work to be performed in order for this objective to be met," William Boy, a top officer at the exchange, wrote in a Nov. 5, 2004, e-mail after city officials missed a deadline to submit information.
Records show that officials fell well short of targets for curbing electricity usage by city buildings despite the construction of energy-efficient buildings and the installation of green roofs across the city.
Daley has been a vocal proponent of rooftop gardens to lower the overall temperature of the city and cut air-conditioning bills. He occasionally takes visiting journalists to the green roof atop City Hall, fueling stories that hail the mayor's attempts to make Chicago the nation's greenest city.
Yet electricity usage by city government last year was 22 percent higher than the 1998-2001 average that the Chicago Climate Exchange used as a baseline, records show.
Some of the rising demand for electricity came from new city buildings promoted as energy-efficient architecture, including the Chicago Center for Green Technology and the Household Chemicals and Computer Recycling Center.
Daley once promised that by now the city would be getting 20 percent of its electricity from renewable, carbon-free sources of energy such as wind and solar power, but the Tribune reported in November that nearly all of the city's power still comes from nuclear and coal plants.
(The exchange counts all non-renewable electricity usage, including that from nuclear power, as an indirect source of carbon emissions.)
City deal falls through
In a June 1 response to questions about Chicago's participation in the exchange, a Environment Department spokesman wrote that the city had just purchased credits worth 60,000 megawatt hours of wind power, enough to meet half of Daley's renewable energy pledge.
Six days later, department officials said the deal had fallen through over a price dispute. They would not elaborate.
"The city is training building operators, installing state-of-the-art energy management controls and installing renewable energy systems throughout its 500 plus buildings citywide to reduce energy usage," the department wrote. "We will continue to work to reduce our energy use and thus our emissions."
The lack of progress reflects some of the criticisms of the exchange. Despite a deluge of new participants, critics say the program is still voluntary and isn't tough enough on members who fail to meet reduction targets.
"We're waiting for the country to get serious about greenhouse gases," said David Lit tell, commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, who is involved in a rival carbon-trading network in the Northeast. "When you look at what we need to do, it's clear we aren't going to get there voluntarily."
----------
mhawthorne@tribune.com
By Michael Hawthorne
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published June 18, 2007
Mayor Richard Daley vowed six years ago to make Chicago a leader in emerging efforts to fight global warming, but city government is churning out more heat-trapping pollution every year.
As part of his high-profile agenda to transform a gritty, smog-choked metropolis into a tree-lined showcase for green initiatives, Daley enrolled the city in a network of corporations and governments that pledged to curb emissions of greenhouse gases by 4 percent during the last four years. The network, called the Chicago Climate Exchange, is widely seen as a proving ground for a mandatory national system being debated in Congress.
The city pledged in 2001 to meet the target by planting green roofs, buying renewable power and rehabbing buildings to make them more energy-efficient, among other steps. Yet the city's emissions of global warming pollution have soared since then, according to records that the Tribune obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
City officials have had some success reducing the amount of gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas burned by government vehicles and buildings, records show. But those improvements have been more than offset by the city's surging demand for electricity, some of which is generated by burning fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The city's lack of progress highlights how the mayor's environmentally friendly speeches failed to translate into aggressive action at City Hall.
'The mayor's promises'
"Reducing carbon emissions requires people to change the way they do business," said Howard Learner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, which promotes clean energy. "Somebody in the city bureaucracy needs the political capital to follow through on the mayor's promises."
City officials, who would discuss their participation in the exchange only by e-mail, wrote that they are installing new climate-control systems in city buildings that should dramatically reduce electricity usage.
In the absence of federal action, city and state governments across the nation have adopted their own initiatives to deal with emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are accumulating in the atmosphere and raising the Earth's average surface temperature. Many experts think that if steps aren't taken soon to reduce emissions, or at least slow their growth, the planet's climate could change radically.
One of Chicago's contributions was becoming a charter member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, which is based on the idea that capitalism and commodities markets might offer the most effective model to solve the problem. Members include companies such as Motorboat, Dopant, Ford and IBM and governments, including Portland and New Mexico. Daley became honorary chairman.
Each year, exchange members are allotted a number of allowances equal to a ton of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas. They agreed to cut emissions by 1 percent per year from 2003 to 2006, and 2 percent per year from 2007 to 2010.
Members that reduce their pollution can sell the remainder of their greenhouse-gas allowances or keep them in reserve. Members that produce more pollution must return surplus allowances to the exchange or buy more.
According to the exchange in the last three years, members have cut emissions by 90 million tons, an amount equal to the annual emissions of six large coal-fired power plants.
"This is a good example of the kind of innovation that will help us solve our energy and environmental problems," Daley said in 2001, when he announced Chicago would join.
Five years later, records show that emissions of greenhouse gases from city government have increased to more than 1 million tons, 10 percent higher than a baseline of 921,938 tons. The baseline is an average of emissions from 1998 to 2001 the exchange uses to measure future increases and reductions.
So far, the city hasn't been required to buy more greenhouse-gas allowances, but records indicate the allowances the city has on hand are dwindling to the point that taxpayers could be required to make up the difference as early as this year.
Internal e-mails obtained by the Tribune show the city had trouble with the exchanger's requirements early on.
For instance, as Daley traveled around the country giving speeches that touted the city's involvement, staff members at the Department of Environment struggled to gather electricity and fuel bills to verify the city's emissions baseline and annual performance.
"The City of Chicago has a great deal of work to be performed in order for this objective to be met," William Boy, a top officer at the exchange, wrote in a Nov. 5, 2004, e-mail after city officials missed a deadline to submit information.
Records show that officials fell well short of targets for curbing electricity usage by city buildings despite the construction of energy-efficient buildings and the installation of green roofs across the city.
Daley has been a vocal proponent of rooftop gardens to lower the overall temperature of the city and cut air-conditioning bills. He occasionally takes visiting journalists to the green roof atop City Hall, fueling stories that hail the mayor's attempts to make Chicago the nation's greenest city.
Yet electricity usage by city government last year was 22 percent higher than the 1998-2001 average that the Chicago Climate Exchange used as a baseline, records show.
Some of the rising demand for electricity came from new city buildings promoted as energy-efficient architecture, including the Chicago Center for Green Technology and the Household Chemicals and Computer Recycling Center.
Daley once promised that by now the city would be getting 20 percent of its electricity from renewable, carbon-free sources of energy such as wind and solar power, but the Tribune reported in November that nearly all of the city's power still comes from nuclear and coal plants.
(The exchange counts all non-renewable electricity usage, including that from nuclear power, as an indirect source of carbon emissions.)
City deal falls through
In a June 1 response to questions about Chicago's participation in the exchange, a Environment Department spokesman wrote that the city had just purchased credits worth 60,000 megawatt hours of wind power, enough to meet half of Daley's renewable energy pledge.
Six days later, department officials said the deal had fallen through over a price dispute. They would not elaborate.
"The city is training building operators, installing state-of-the-art energy management controls and installing renewable energy systems throughout its 500 plus buildings citywide to reduce energy usage," the department wrote. "We will continue to work to reduce our energy use and thus our emissions."
The lack of progress reflects some of the criticisms of the exchange. Despite a deluge of new participants, critics say the program is still voluntary and isn't tough enough on members who fail to meet reduction targets.
"We're waiting for the country to get serious about greenhouse gases," said David Lit tell, commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, who is involved in a rival carbon-trading network in the Northeast. "When you look at what we need to do, it's clear we aren't going to get there voluntarily."
----------
mhawthorne@tribune.com
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 7:50 AM
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