Video Update: Regional Climate Convening

Each week, Mayor Hamilton and Deputy Mayor Griffin provide video updates on recent news and key initiatives. In today's video, Mayor Hamilton discusses the Regional Climate Convening with Economic & Sustainability Development Director Alex Crowley. Access all of the weekly video updates at bloomington.in.gov/videoupdates.

 

Join Mayor Hamilton and Economic & Sustainable Development Director Alex Crowley as they discuss the first Regional Climate Convening assembled to discuss and address climate change. 

The event held on Tuesday, October 4, brought together about 100 critical players from Bartholomew, Brown, and Monroe Counties, from the private, nonprofit, educational, and government sectors. The goal was to address the shared challenge that is climate change and explore preparation, adaptation, and mitigation measures.

Learn more about the event at bloomington.in.gov/news/2022/10/06/5333

 

Transcript

John Hamilton:

Hi, I'm Mayor John Hamilton of Bloomington, and I'm here today with Alex Crowley, the director of Economic and Sustainable Development for our city. And we wanted to update you on a big event that just happened recently, October 4th, Tuesday. Alex, we just had a regional climate convening, which was a big deal, but can you tell us what it was?

 

Alex Crowley:

Sure. So it was the first convening of its kind in this area. It was a collaboration between Monroe County, Brown County, and Bartholomew County led by a variety of players in those communities. And invited were leaders from across those communities in a variety of sectors, private sector, public sector, nonprofits. We ended up having about a hundred people at the event, which is great. Basically, it involved a keynote speaker, Tom Linebarger, who's the executive chairman of Cummins. And Cummins is doing great work in sustainability.

 

John Hamilton:

Big global company that did ... Actually they make engines, so they're really in the middle of all this.

 

Alex Crowley:

They are, and they're doing amazing things when it comes to sustainability. And then we had three panels, one dealing with science, the science of climate issues. We had a panel dealing with collaboration and what it might look like. And then we also had a panel dealing with what different sectors are actually currently doing, including both the governmental and private sectors.

 

John Hamilton:

Great. So this was really exciting. Three hours in the afternoon, thinking about climate and working together about climate, as you said the first regional summit. So what's important about it? Why does it matter what happened that afternoon?

 

Alex Crowley:

Well, first of all, there is a climate emergency, so that's a pretty important foundation for this. What we have understood, and I think what a lot of people understand is that there's only so much a government can do, a governmental entity, whether it's local or even national.

 

John Hamilton:

We have our climate action plan.

 

Alex Crowley:

We have that.

 

John Hamilton:

But we can't do a lot of that ourselves.

 

Alex Crowley:

That's right. And actually, if you look at our greenhouse gas inventory, it suggests that a lot of the actions that have to be taken will fall outside of our direct control. So what the convening is about is really setting the stage to find ways to partner in a public-private way, because it's going to have to be a community-wide effort. This is not something that we're going to solve. This is going to be with us forever.

 

John Hamilton:

I think somebody said it's a journey, not a destination. I mean, it's really a journey that we're on.

 

Alex Crowley:

And someone else said at the conference yesterday, I think it might have been the keynote speaker, that really, we are never going to be able to back up. We are going to have to mitigate, we're going to have to continue to press forward. So anyway, we are in a position where we really are going to be dependent on a really great structure for collaboration across the three counties. And we're looking for ways to do that.

 

John Hamilton:

Well, I have to say it was a really exciting period of time, that hours, those people really digging into this climate emergency. So what's going to happen next? What's going to happen next with this?

 

Alex Crowley:

Well, we're not sure yet, but what we hope is that ... We were planting some seeds in terms of thinking about ways in which collaboration can work. I'm hoping to see maybe sectoral coordination, even if it's just within the private industry. There are people at different stages of where they are on this journey. And I think having leaders like the Cummins of the world and some other players, we have local players who are being very aggressive, the Secretly Group was one of the panelists, and they're doing really great things. So really coordination both within sectors, between sectors, and then certainly between the government and the private sector as well.

 

John Hamilton:

Great. Well, if you want more information about it, you can check out our website. But Alex, I want to thank you for helping put that whole thing on with your team and I hope October 4th, 2022 when that happened will be seen as the start of something really important to get our community, our region taking more steps and more steps to address the climate emergency. So thanks for your interest and again, we appreciate your attention and check out more online if you want.

 

Click here to learn more about the Regional Climate Convening.