When Chicago city planners decided they needed a proactive strategy to plan for climate change, the first question asked was “What does climate change mean for Chicago?” The Joyce Foundation also recognized the need to grapple with that same question. Through a grant to the Global Philanthropy Partnership, the City found the answer.

The Joyce Foundation was the first and largest supporter of research to guide policy makers as they plotted how the city would respond to climate change. “Climate Change and Chicago: Projections and Potential Impacts,” a report published in the fall of 2008, laid the groundwork for policy priorities. Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, ATMOS Research, and Donald Wuebbles, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, authored the report.

“Climate Change and Chicago” noted that the characteristics defining Chicago's historic weather patterns were fundamentally changing. For example, the growing season was becoming longer while winter ice coverage on Lake Michigan and smaller lakes in the area were decreasing. Heat waves in the mid- and late-1990s also indicated a change in climate, with more frequent and intense extreme weather events, as well as less snow in winter and an earlier spring melt. Rainfall, too, doubled in frequency compared to the last century. With winters warming by almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit, the report’s authors wrote “It is extremely likely that global temperatures and temperatures over Chicago are expected to warm further over coming decades, as human emissions of heat-trapping gases continue.” At the end of century, experts predicted, summer in Chicago could be similar to current summer weather in Mobile, Alabama.

Following the release of the Hayhoe-Wuebbles report, the Climate Change Task Force, which included Joyce Foundation President Ellen S. Alberding, created the Chicago Climate Action Plan. The Action Plan integrated the following suggestions proposed in the Hayhoe-Wuebbles report.

• Prepare for heat waves by implementing a heat-watch warning system
• Reduce summer energy use through a home weatherization program, a green infrastructure program, and a cooling initiative to spur innovation
• Improve air quality by reducing ground-level ozone precursor emissions of pollutants from vehicles and other sources
• Prepare for increases in the frequency of heavy rainfall events and flood risk
• Implement measures to protect Lake Michigan’s shoreline from erosion
• Adapt Chicago’s trees and plants to a changing climate through a new planting plan recommending plants that remove pollutants, help manage heat, absorb stormwater, and can tolerate expected climate changes

Today, as implementation of the Chicago Climate Action Plan occurs, the city is receiving national praise for its strategy. An editorial in the New York Times praised Chicago’s efforts in “planning, moving, doing — adapting streets and buildings to the coming reality of snowier winters, wetter springs, and hotter summers.” PBS drew attention to the health threats that rising temperatures pose, and Chicago’s initiative to minimize the effects of climate change.

Simultaneously, policy makers instrumental in crafting and implementing the Chicago Climate Action Plan have been recognized for the Plan’s innovation. In 2010, then Mayor Richard M. Daley received the 2010 Mayors’ Climate Protection Award, sponsored by The US Conference of Mayors, and UN-Habitat heralded Chicago as one of the World’s Greenest Cities.

Watch the PBS Video

Resources
Chicago Climate Action Plan
Chicago Climate Action Plan: The First Two Years Progress Report
Climate Change and Chicago: Projections and Potential Impacts
Climate Change and Chicago Executive Summary