Bloomington may dissolve its Climate Action and Resilience committee, committee members and City Councilmembers Matt Flaherty and Hopi Stosberg said.
Flaherty, the committee chair, said the council will take up a single resolution regarding changes related to committees in the coming weeks.
“That resolution will include the proposed sunsetting of the Climate Action and Resilience Committee in favor of directing climate-related policy work into other channels and activity streams (both existing and new)” he said in an email to the Indiana Daily Student.
City Councilmember Hopi Stosberg is working on a resolution for an upcoming legislative meeting. In an email, she said she expected the resolution to appear on the council’s Feb. 19 or March 5 meeting agendas. The resolution did not appear on the council’s Feb. 19 agenda, and the council has not yet released its March 5 agenda.
In a time when lawmakers are walking back climate action initiatives on a national scale, the city of Bloomington is planning to potentially “sunset” its climate action committee, which the city founded in 2020.
Stosberg said the proposal to sunset the program is not motivated by the changed political climate.
“It might be strange, the city council (getting) rid of their climate action committee,” she said. "What's going on with that? But the real reason is really that it's not needed.”
Stosberg said there are city employees whose primary responsibilities revolve around implementing climate action plans. Bloomington is also a part of Project 46, a regional alliance bringing cities across southern Indiana together to fight climate change.
During a Jan. 15 council meeting, Flaherty proposed a discussion on the fate of the committee. All present council members voiced their support for ending the committee.
“I don't think any of this is motivated by political divisiveness associated with climate policy or acting on climate change,” he said. “I think we have consensus in city government, and also broad support from the local constituency, to tackle that issue.”
Flaherty said the future of the committee is about finding the right structures, processes and collaborative arrangements to take climate action in the city.
But for people like IU junior Janani Eswaran, the prospects of not having a committee for climate action is worrying.
“I think it's really important to have dedicated groups of people working towards something,” she said.
Eswaran, a board member for the League of Women Voters of Indiana is involved in climate change awareness activities and is passionate about social and environmental causes. While she recognizes all the actions around climate change the city has taken so far, she shared her fear for the future without an assigned group of people working on climate and resilience.
“Bloomington has had successes with climate plans and resolutions that I never want to undermine,” she said. “But what happens is, when you don't have a dedicated group of people focusing on something, sometimes you lose momentum regarding that particular issue.”
Artist and climate awareness activist Carol Rhodes takes the proposed plans as “cautionary.” Rhodes is the founder of Bloomington based nonprofit Artists for Climate Awareness.
“Re-delegating the responsibilities of the Climate Action and Resilience Committee to other departments who will operate under the directive of the existing Climate Action Plan can be fiscally and operationally sensible,” Rhodes said.
The committee was formed in 2020 to focus on the city’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase community resilience. Connecting dots between the city's climate action to economic, social and environmental equity was the main responsibility of the four-member committee.
Stosberg is aware that ending the climate committee seems “weird” for people who care about it.
“There's so much structure that has already been implemented into the city to make progress on climate related goals,” she said. “(The) committee has almost become redundant, or just not necessary anymore, in terms of when it started and where we are now.”
In April 2021, the city adopted its climate action plan with a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030, which is below 2018 emissions levels, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
In 2018, Bloomington emitted nearly 1.3 million metric tons of carbon. According to a greenhouse gas inventory in 2023, Bloomington’s total emissions were 1.1 million metric tons, which is 95 thousand metric tons lower than that five years before.
The city’s 2023 greenhouse gas inventory released late last month found Bloomington is on track to meet its 25% reduction goal by 2030, but is behind on its goal for net-zero emissions by 2050.
Flaherty said he believes that legislative development and bodies are still enough to work on climate resilience. There are other commissions related to environmental issues, including Commission on Sustainability, Environmental Commission and Tree Commission.
“We would be better suited to use those other tools and other venues to advance climate action and resilience and implementation of those of our plans in the city,” Flaherty said.
During the city council meeting Jan. 15, members of the public also voiced their support to end the climate action committee but suggested having some mechanism to address emergency situations including snowstorms, floods and fires.
“I agree with council members on the climate action committee, but we need some kind of emergency management body,” Terry Amsler, Bloomington resident and an adjunct lecturer at IU, said.
Even though there was consensus among council members and public participants to end the designated body to climate action, it does not make sense to young activists like Eswaran.
“It definitely worries me to see the committee going to be dissolved,” she said.
She said she felt a sense of hopelessness.
“My hope is that climate legislation continues regardless, and we continue making those incremental steps,” she said.
