President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord last month has mobilized mayors across the United States to double down on their commitments to tackle climate change in their respective cities.
Part of this effort includes the Climate Mayors, a group of more than 300 mayors who agreed to uphold the Paris climate agreement and intensify efforts to combat climate change at the local level. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is one of those mayors.
"With the Trump administration retreating on climate action and abdicating America’s leadership role, we didn’t want the entire country to be missing in action. We wanted to send a very loud and clear message that we’re still in," Barrett told "The Kathleen Dunn Show" on Wednesday.
Milwaukee leaders realized climate change was a problem that wasn’t going to go away for the city after flooding following tornadoes in 2008 and more flooding confined to Milwaukee in 2010, Barrett said.
"With our proximity to the Great Lakes, with the fact that we really rely on freshwater for our economy, we wanted to be part of this conversation," he said.
For example, after the federal government removed information on climate change from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website, the Milwaukee city government, along with a number of other city governments throughout the country, put the information on its own webpage.
The webpage called "Climate Change is Real" was led by Erick Shambarger, the director of environmental sustainability for the city of Milwaukee. It's just the latest in several efforts Milwaukee is taking to address climate change. The city has environmentally friendly policies it implemented in earlier years that are still underway.
The Better Buildings Challenge program, where the city government works with private businesses that want to reduce their energy use, was created in 2012 through the U.S. Department of Energy.
In terms of promoting renewable energy, the city has the Milwaukee Shines program, which offers a group-buy so home and business owners can get bulk pricing on solar. The program aims to "drive solar at a neighborhood level," Shambarger said.
There’s also a wind turbine at the Port of Milwaukee, which serves all the port’s electricity needs, he said.
However, there is more Milwaukee could do to support the development of alternative energy sources, Shambarger noted.
The west coast, for example, has more happening in the renewable sector because of state-level policies that encourage growth, he said. Wisconsin has attracted national solar companies like Sunrun because of city-level policies to improve the permitting process, and the solar equipment company SunVest is based in Pewaukee.
"The solar industry really is growing in Wisconsin, but it’s not growing as fast as it probably could be with more proactive policies at the state and federal level," Shambarger said.
In terms of crafty eco-friendly policies surrounding Lake Michigan, Barrett and Shambarger see promise in the city’s partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences, the only only graduate school of freshwater science in the United States.
"It’s really important for us to work with the professionals of the School of Freshwater Sciences and really try to develop science-based policy, and that’s something I think we’re missing a little bit at the federal level," Shambarger said.
Milwaukee is struggling with the possibility that funding will be cut for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a series of projects to protect and restore the Great Lakes funded by the federal government.
Trump’s 2018 budget plan would eliminate funding for the GLRI.
"My experience in Congress was, in the southeast you had the Everglades issues, and all the politicians in Florida from both parties came around that issue. You go to the Maryland area, the Chesapeake Bay, again, it became a bipartisan issue. And now in the Midwest you have, I think, members of both parties rallying around this (GLRI) to make sure this is a priority," Barrett said.
Not every politician, but I know that there’s been a good number of them who’ve said, 'Look, you just can’t slice and dice this program; it’s too important to Great Lake states.'"
The House Appropriations Committee released a bill Tuesday that would provide funding for the initiative. The House bill still includes cuts to the initiative, but provides nearly $2 billion more to GLRI than Trump’s proposed budget would.
"We’re going to try to do what we can at the local level," Barrett said.