350 Chicago's 2023 Year in Review

In this Issue:

• IL EPA has $3m in clean energy funding for municipalities

• Report that failing to divest from fossil fuels hurts returns

• 2023 Year in Review

In Brief:

Illinois EPA Efficiency Funding/Grant for Municipalities and Counties

Working with a municipality or county in Illinois who might be interested in funding for energy efficiency, building upgrades, and conservation? The Illinois EPA has nearly $3 million in grant funding available to allocate from the US Department of Energy. Applications are due by January 22, 2024. More information here.

Pension Funds Lose Billions by Not Divesting from Fossil Fuels

The University of Waterloo released a report showing that if six major pension funds had divested away from fossil fuels 10 years ago they would have an average return rate over 13% higher, which would have resulted in over $21 billion in gains for those funds. See the report here and an article from Fossil Free California here.

2023 Year in Review

by Larry Coble & 350 Chicago

2023, what a year! It’s always easy to see the overwhelming size of the challenges ahead, but acknowledging success is just as important. As we close out the year, this is a perfect time to take a moment to look at where we’ve been, celebrate the progress we’ve made, and see how we can improve and prepare to fight even harder in 2024.

Chicago Policy Advocacy

Chicago really had a turning point in 2023. A new mayor, a rate hike fight, and progress on fossil fuel divestment all changed the landscape in a big way.

Through 350 Chicago's Divestment Teams policy advocacy, 39th District Representative Will Guzzardi introduced HB3037 into the Illinois State House to divest the state's pension funds from fossil fuels. 350 Chicago has met with representatives and senators to find co-sponsors in the House and have a companion bill introduced in the state senate.

People’s Gas requested a massive $402 million rate hike that was opposed by a 50-Group coalition led by Illinois- PIRG and including 350 Chicago. The rate hike was contested by the City of Chicago as well and ultimately the pushback was successful. Peoples Gas had their rate hike slashed, their pipe replacement program was paused while an investigation is conducted into the utilities activities, and low-income rate payers were provided with more cost certainty with a tiered discount rate system.

Chicago has a new mayor in 2023, and we wanted to make sure the environment was high on the priority list. 350 Chicago, alongside many other environmental organizations in Chicago, called for the reinstatement of the Department of the Environment which was disbanded under former mayor Rahm Emanuel and its responsibilities split amongst the Department of Health and an under-funded Office of Sustainability. Major Johnson heard the concerns and his first budget reinstated the Department of the Environment, though more work needs to be done to bring it up to its full operating potential.

Actions & Outreach

350 has had a very active 2023 with new initiatives, new members, and broader outreach than ever before.

We launched our Speaker Series to bring experts and educators to speak on key issues regarding the climate crisis and solutions to the crisis. These have been extremely successful, and have reached hundreds of people in person and online. We have speakers dealing with clean energy, dealing with mental health concerns over climate change, and multiple speakers on educating others about climate change. We have many of the videos on our growing YouTube Channel with many more coming.

350 Chicago led two actions during the People vs. Fossil Fuels Campaign on January 20th and June 9th to honor legendary indigenous activist Joye Braun and call for President Biden to declare a climate emergency, shut down the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline running through the Straits of Mackinac. A spill at the juncture of Lake Michigan and Huron would endanger the drinking water of millions in the Great Lakes Basin. The action on June 9th also demanded that the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) Stop the Rate Hike proposed by Peoples Gas. We visited the Peoples Gas headquarters at the Aon Center to protest the rate hike and call out People's Gas' corrupt practices of trying to pass their cost overruns onto rate payers. The campaign culminated in September with 350 Chicago assisting Fridays for Future and the Chicago Climate Youth Coalition with the organizing of a Climate Strike on September 15th. Two days later, members of 350 Chicago went to New York City for the March to End Fossil Fuels on September 17th and the Non-Violent Direct Action at the New York Federal Reserve on September 18th, where nearly 100 protestors were arrested for the Federal Reserve not regulating the bank's investments in fossil fuel infrastructure.

Chapter President Larry Coble visited the 350 Montana chapter and had the opportunity to meet two of the youth plaintiffs in Montana who scored a huge victory in the state courts, holding politicians and the fossil fuel industry accountable in Held v. State of Montana for not adhering to the states constitution to provide a “right to a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.” More information about this heartening victory will come in a following newsletter.

350 Chicago Levels Up

Last but not least, we wanted to touch on a few ways in which our organization itself became stronger, better funded, and better positioned for 2024.

350 Chicago was elevated to the 350 Network Council due to our work in the People vs. Fossil Fuel campaign, our capacity building, and our current expanding organizational size. The 350 Council consists of the 10 largest 350.org groups across the country. Our accession to General Member will provide us with more funding opportunities and provide us with the ability to learn from and coordinate in a much more impactful manner to fight the climate crisis locally and nationally. Our experience this year with the 350 Network Council gave 350 Chicago much greater visibility and more resources and led to the hiring of our first part-time employee, Ebonee Stevenson for the People vs. Fossil Fuels Campaign. 

For Giving Tuesday our organization received over $12,000 in funding, our most successful Giving Tuesday to Date. Thank you deeply to everyone who gave and made this as successful as it was

We added significant new firepower to our Fundraising and Grant Writing team, led by Kaitlin Cordes. We expanded membership and worked with a grant writing specialist which led to our first ever unrestricted foundation grant from Ben & Jerrys. This will be used to fund more permanent staffing for our organization’s policy and engagement initiatives going forward.

We have also expanded membership and activity in multiple committees. This includes our Divestment Team led by Melissa Brice which has been pushing on divestment at the state level, our Communications Team led by Rich Foss and Josh Horwitz which has organized our speaker series, newsletter, our Social Media team led by Abby Schwartz, and our Outreach Committee led by Joseph Hopkinson which is always finding ways to add new members and spark engagement.

Final Thanks

2023 has been an exciting year and we want to especially thank all of our hardworking volunteers, donors, and everyone who attended our events, protests, speaker series, tabling events, and everything else during the year. Happy New Year, and looking forward to fighting the climate crisis with you all in 2024!