Minneapolis Comes Up With A Climate Plan

The Climate Equity Plan has been formulated with the inputs of community members, partners and stakeholders

Minneapolis City Council has approved the city’s Climate Equity Plan, which aims to further the city’s health and sustainability goals and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. By creating this plan for all, the city said it is striving to achieve an environmentally just, resilient, low-carbon and equitable city.

Community member, partner, and stakeholder inputs were crucial in creating the final plan. During the public comment period (April 19-June 5), the Health Department received more than 1,000 responses with more than 1,800 comments. The top three among them were creating a more aggressive timeline, creating bigger, more measurable, and more transparent goals, and showing which departments are accountable for carrying out the plan.

Meanwhile, the top five topics of importance included:

• Energy systems (24 per cent)
• Healthy homes (22 per cent)
• Transportation (14.5 per cent)
• Green buildings (9 per cent)
• Green economy and workforce (8 per cent).
   

“The Climate Equity Plan gives us the vision and aspirational targets based on science,” said deputy commissioner Patrick Hanlon, Minneapolis Health Department. “We all need to work together as a community with an equity focus to reach these high and necessary goals.”