Climate change: City to be in cohort on environment

Columbus, Bloomington and six other Indiana communities will work with Indiana University to understand the local impacts of climate change and plan for the future.

The university announced last week that Bloomington, Carmel, Columbus, Gary, Monroe County, New Albany, South Bend and Terre Haute have been chosen to participate in IU’s 2023 Resilience Cohort. The Columbus Board of Works will consider approving a contract related to this program during a 10 a.m. meeting today, which will be held in the council chambers of Columbus City Hall.

The annual cohort program, led by IU’s Environmental Resilience Institute (ERI), is intended to help local governments prepare for and address the challenges of climate change. Columbus, Bloomington, Carmel and Gary were previously part of the initial cohort in 2019, with each community completing an inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions.

According to a 2018 report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Indiana has already warmed more than one degree Fahrenheit in the last century, and temperatures are projected to rise about five to six degrees by midcentury, with “significantly more warming by century’s end.”

“This shift brings with it a myriad of changes with potentially severe consequences for agriculture, public health, infrastructure, wildlife, and water quality,” said IU officials. “Though progress is being made locally and globally to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts of climate change will be felt by Hoosier communities for generations.”

ERI’s 2023 Resilience Cohort, which is part of the McKinney Midwest Climate Project, will connect local governments to experts, training and resources to guide them through a “climate vulnerability assessment” and planning for climate resilience. The program will be facilitated by the Geos Institute, a nonprofit focused on helping communities develop climate resilience.

Each local government in the cohort will also host a McKinney Climate Fellow. Every undergraduate or graduate fellow will have expertise in “climate, sustainability and resilience” and help their host community with the assessment and planning process.

According to Columbus Assistant Director of Community Development Robin Hilber, the Columbus Board of Works must approve an agreement with the university in order to facilitate this internship.

“The goal is to conduct a community-wide Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment and develop a Climate Resilience Plan,” she wrote in a memo to the board. “Indiana University will pay a stipend and is asking that we contribute $2,000 toward this which is comparable to the stipend we paid in 2018 when we had a sustainability intern.”

The intern is expected to work with the city remotely from May 29 to Aug. 4.

The first half of the 2023 cohort program will take place from May to August of 2023, with a focus on evaluating past and future climate risks, IU officials said. The second half will run from September of 2023 to April of 2024 and will “identify resilience strategies to be included in the final plan.” Both phases will include involvement from community stakeholders.

“Even as Hoosiers take actions to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst potential impacts of climate change down the road, we must also become more resilient to the changes that have become unavoidable,” said ERI Managing Director Sarah Mincey in an official statement. “Cities, towns, and counties that take the time to assess and plan for anticipated impacts today will be better positioned to cope with conditions that affect Hoosiers’ health and livelihoods.”