County May Rejoin City-County Climate Change Committee

Solar panels. CC0 Creative Commons. Photo from pixabay.

Milwaukee County Supervisors are interested in having the county re-join a task force that worked on goals to reduce greenhouse gases and improve economic equity.

In 2019, around the time progressive legislators were pushing a “Green New Deal” at the federal level, the city of Milwaukee and the county convened a task force devoted to similar concerns: climate change and racial equity in a green economy.

The resulting City-County Task Force on Climate Change and Economic Equity worked for about two years developing a plan with 10 “big ideas” for tackling the dual focuses of the task force, as well as setting an ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

After releasing its report, the task force had achieved its aims. A year later, Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic brought a resolution forward that reconstituted the task force as an advisory board. The change shifted the mission of the body from planning to monitoring implementation.

“This is pretty much a technical change, but significant nonetheless,” Dimitrijevic said in 2023. The city has won several grants to aid in implementing the plan.

Now, Sup. Anne O’Connor has drafted a similar resolution for the county board, which would give its approval to reconstitute the task force as an advisory board. The advisory board would provide annual updates to supervisors on the county’s implementation of the climate and economic equity goals contained in the task force report.

O’Connor told Urban Milwaukee climate change is “as important as ever” and said the county has new leadership in the Department of Sustainability following the promotion of Grant Helle, who’s now leading the small county office focused on climate-related sustainability planning.

“Also, there is a public desire for an all-hands-on-deck approach to addressing climate change. We’ve heard that loud and clear from constituents,” O’Connor said. “Climate change doesn’t recognize municipal boundaries so working together is key.”

The advisory board includes elected officials and government employees from both the city and the county, as well as representatives from a number of local organizations working on climate or economic equity including Citizen Action of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Climate Table, Sierra Club, Community Advocates Public Policy Institute, Milwaukee NAACP, Milwaukee Area Labor Council and Clean Wisconsin.

O’Connor’s resolution has co-sponsorship from supervisors Felesia Martin, Caroline Gómez-Tom, Justin Bielinski and Sky Capriolo. It will be considered later this month by the board’s Committee on Community, Environment and Economic Development.