South Bend council approves Pete Buttigieg climate plan, while activists urge going further

At a public hearing Tuesday night, everyone who spoke asked the council to pass a resolution supporting the plan but some people said it should merely be a first step toward bolder action later.

The council voted 7-0 for a resolution supporting the administration’s 41-page “Carbon Neutral 2050,” a plan with a goal of reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 100% over the next three decades. The plan sets two interim goals along the way — the Paris accord’s 26% emission reduction by 2025, followed by a 45% reduction by 2035. 

In his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Buttigieg has criticized Republican President Donald Trump for withdrawing the United States from the Paris agreement. But some environmental activists, including a grass-roots group called Sunrise Movement that staged a sit-in last Friday outside Buttgieg’s office, have said his plan doesn’t go far enough because it’s less ambitious than the Green New Deal advocated by progressive House Democrats and presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The council in April unanimously passed a resolution greenlighting the administration’s interest in developing a plan to address climate change, following a 1,000-year flood of the city in 2016 and another 500-year flood last year. The administration in April contracted with the Chicago-based Delta Institute, for $50,000, to develop the plan.

The plan places greater emphasis on incentive-based strategies than regulations requiring businesses to take action.

“While regulations may not cost a municipality much to implement, they can prove to be onerous and expensive to property owners and developers,” the plan states. “Given South Bend’s status as a rebounding post-industrial city, concerns exist that increasing regulations could weaken promising economic growth.”

While much of the plan covers things the city administration will do to reduce carbon emissions from its own facilities and vehicles, they only amount to about 3% of all emissions in the city.