Kane County releases draft of first ever Climate Action Implementation Plan

The product of an 82-person volunteer team and more than 1,000 community survey responses, Kane County recently released a draft of its first Climate Action Implementation Plan.

The plan spans eight sections such as transportation, local food and waste management. It also establishes three sweeping long-term sustainability goals: increase resilience to climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25% below 2019 levels by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

“Climate action is something that I think is important to Kane County and the entire world right now,” said county board member Mavis Bates. “If we want to be responsible to ourselves and to future generations, we have to be working on climate action, and it has to be local. So much of climate pollution comes from local governments and local homes. There's no place to start besides a local or county level.”

Since last June, a mix of 82 volunteers including local business owners, advocates and residents met monthly to craft the plan, splitting into subcommittees to tackle each section. The county had also hired energy and sustainability planning consultant paleBLUEdot in August 2022 for support in establishing the goals and developing the plan.

With a final draft now in hand, the county is inviting residents to four upcoming public input sessions:

The plan is also available for public review and input through Feb. 29 at palebluedot.llc/kane-climate-action.

County sustainability manager Sarra Hinshaw added one of the reasons ongoing community feedback is so important is the plan is not stagnant.

“It's continuously ongoing. We’ll review the plan every few years to update what we have done and what we haven't done, and that will change depending on technology that comes out and just how things are moving along,” she said.

While the document zeros in on specific climate goals and actions for Kane County — such as increasing public transit commuter ridership from 2.24% to 6.5% by 2030 — it also includes actions for local municipalities.

“It’s an umbrella for Kane County, but it also serves for the municipalities and private agencies to kind of pick what they want out of the plan to tailor to their own needs,” Hinshaw said. “It's not just Kane County as government, it is for the whole region and each individual municipality to move forward in their own direction as well.”

Bates, who has long envisioned such a plan for the county as chairperson of the energy and environmental commission, emphasized that the time for climate action is now.

“This is so important. Climate change is happening. It's threatening my generation, your generation, future generations and we have to take this seriously,” she said. “It's really happening and we really have to do something about it right away.”

Following intake of public feedback, the plan is anticipated to go before the Kane County Board in April.

• Jenny Whidden, jwhidden@dailyherald.com, is a climate change and environment writer working with the Daily Herald through a partnership with Report For America supported by The Nature Conservancy. To help support her work with a tax-deductible donation, see dailyherald.com/rfa.