350 Chicago: 2024 Year in Review!

In This Issue

• Events

  • 350 Chicago General Meeting

• In Brief

  • Held v Montana: Climate Wins in First U.S. Youth-led Climate Trial

  • Study: Voters Support Phasing Out Fossil Fuel Extraction

  • New York Climate Change Superfund Act Passed!

• 350 Chicago 2024 Year in Review

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Events

350 Chicago General Meeting

• Monday January 20th, 6:30pm

• via Zoom

Join 350 Chicago for our General Meeting! During the meeting, we will provide campaign updates and discuss the work 350 Chicago is doing in Chicago and Illinois to help preserve a livable planet. We will also provide information about ways to volunteer and get involved with 350 Chicago. Please contact [email protected] to attend the General Meeting, we will send you the zoom link.

In Brief

Held v Montana: Climate Wins in First U.S. Youth-led Climate Trial

As reported by Our Children's Trust: In a historic ruling today, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed 6-1 the decision of the district court in the landmark case, Held v. State of Montana, siding with the 16 youth plaintiffs who had sued the state over its promotion of fossil fuel extraction and its failure to consider climate change impacts in its decision-making. This ruling, the first of its kind from a state supreme court, affirms the district court’s ruling that the state’s acts in perpetuating a fossil fuel energy system with blind eyes violated the youth plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, dignity, and safety, reinforcing the growing legal momentum behind youth-led climate justice movements.

Study: Voters Support Phasing Out Fossil Fuel Extraction

According to Climate & Community Institute, voters overwhelmingly support measures to curtail fossil fuel production, such as ending fossil fuel subsidies and phasing out new fossil fuel production. 350 Chicago is committed to showing politicians and decision makers that the people support moving away from fossil fuels, and towards a more sustainable future.

New York Climate Change Superfund Act Passed!

New York is making history by requiring the fossil fuel companies that knowingly caused climate damage to pay their fair share of the costs, protecting taxpayers and communities while setting a model for the nation. On December 26, 2024, Governor Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law, making New York the second state in the nation to require fossil fuel companies to pay for climate damages. This historic legislation will raise $75 billion over 25 years from the oil and gas companies most responsible for the climate crisis, funding vital climate adaptation and resilience projects across the state

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350 Chicago: 2024 Year in Review

by 350 Chicago

As 350 Chicago looks forward to the challenging work of fighting the climate crisis in 2025, we would like to reflect on our accomplishments in 2024, which was a turning point year for our organization.

Actions & Protests

In April of 2024, Friday’s For Future, the Chicago Climate Youth Coalition and Loyola Student Environmental Alliance organized and executed their protest action with great success at Chase Bank over the institution's ongoing funding of fossil fuel infrastructure. They also protested outside the federal building, demanding that President Biden accelerate the end of the fossil fuel era by declaring a climate emergency. 350 Chicago provided signage and logistical support for our allies, and turned out supporters to assist their action.

On October 23rd of 2024, a coalition organized by Rising Tide Chicago and attended by climate fighting groups from Illinois and Wisconsin rallied in support of Indigenous tribes from the United States and Canada to support their fight against the Line 5 pipeline running through the tribal lands of the the Chippewa’s Bad River Band between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. We used chants, street theater, banners, signs, and songs to show support, calling for removal of the Line 5 pipeline. The pipeline violates Indigenous sovereignty, threatens clean drinking water, and contributes to climate collapse. We have supported this effort for the last decade and will continue until the pipeline is decommissioned.

Fossil Fuel Divestment & Climate Safe Pensions

At the beginning of 2024, 350 Chicago formed the Climate Safe Pensions Illinois (CSPI) coalition with Third Act Illinois and Climate Reality Project Chicago to fight for fossil fuel divestment in Illinois. The CSPI coalition partnered with the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) to have the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act introduced in the Illinois state legislature last year. While the legislation did not pass, the coalition continued to build momentum by increasing sponsors, gathering 1,500+ signatures on postcards from citizens supporting the act to be hand-delivered to legislators, and adding more organizations. We will continue this push into 2025, recruiting allies and applying pressure to legislators. If your organization would like to endorse the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, reach out to [email protected].

We also launched a new website for the Climate Safe Pensions coalition! Learn more about our work here: https://www.climatesafepensionsillinois.org/

Utility Accountability & Reform

For the past year 350 Chicago has collaborated with our partners in the 350 Network Council to develop campaigns and educate the public about the corruption of Investor Owned Utilities (IOU’s). As monopolies, IOU’s routinely charge ratepayers without their knowledge for the IOU’s lobbying expenses, pushing their expenses for lobbying, trade memberships, lawyers, and other costs onto consumers.

We have joined the coalition being led by Citizens Utility Board to enact lobbying reform in Illinois through the Utility Transparency Act. This act aims to make utility bills more affordable for ratepayers by stopping IOU’s from charging rate payers for their lobbying practices, and would save ratepayers approximately $40 million a year in energy costs.

These kinds of practices are happening in Chicago, and all over the country as well. So last summer we hosted a webinar with our sister organizations in the 350 Network Council to educate the public and learn lessons from about other campaigns across the country to hold IOU’s accountable for their corrupt business practices.

Speaker Series

350 Chicago continued to develop and present our Climate Speaker Series with a combination of in person and online webinar events over the past year. Led by Board Vice-President Rich Foss, the speakers series brought in academics and experts to speak on a wide range of climate crisis related topics which you can find on our YouTube channel. We would like to thank all of our presenters for lending their expertise to our speaker series events. Look for more videos in the new year!

Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC)

We are currently in transition with our work with the ICJC. We would like to thank our previous representative, Madeline Warholic, who recently moved to Washington D.C., and welcome Mary Baker as our representative attending the working group meetings for the Policy committee and represents us with the coalition’s Climate Table. Over 2025, we intend to increase our presence with the ICJC to work on clean and equitable transportation, a clean and reliable grid and clean and healthy buildings.

Outreach Committee

In the spring of 2024, 350 Chicago reconstituted its Outreach committee and attended 15 events, including festivals, farmers markets, green/eco fairs and recycling events across the greater Chicagoland area to promote the state divestment and utility accountability campaigns. We collected over 1500 signatures on postcards in support of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act while explaining the importance of divestment as a climate solution. If you know of an event in the coming year that would welcome a table with an environmental/climate presence, please reach out to [email protected]. Thank you to all the volunteers who worked the tables, helped gather signatures and explained 350 Chicago’s work to Illinoisans!

Communications Committee

Led by Abby Schwartz, the Communication Committee increased 350 Chicago’s presence on Social Media and across sites such as Meetup and Threads. Abby worked hard to ensure we have had a consistent and regular voice, and recruited more volunteers to create graphics and content and manage platforms. In 2025, we will be expanding our online presence by building a new website platform let by Zack Gilbert. Thank you as well to Joshua Horwitz for producing our monthly newsletter.

A New Milestone

350 Chicago reached a new stage in our development as an organization. Through the ongoing generous support of donors, grants from funders and the amazing efforts of our many volunteers, 350 Chicago was able to create a funding base to hire our first full-time staff member: Executive Director Larry Coble!

“It took a lot of work from volunteers, organizers and funders to get our organization to this point. This step represents a leveling up of our organization, and lets us work even harder to push both Chicago and Illinois into taking real, meaningful steps towards solving the climate crisis.” – Larry Coble

Newly elected President of the Board Kaitlin Cordes led our Fundraising team during 2023/24 and helped develop the resources which will help us form the foundation of a stronger organization going forward. Thank you so much from Larry and from 350 Chicago as a whole to all of our donors, members, and volunteers who made this happen! This position is the foundation that will allow us to push even harder in 2025.

Melissa Brice

Lastly, I would like to say thank you to Melissa Brice, who co-founded the 350 Chicago chapter in 2014. For seven years she was the main driving force in the successful campaign to have the city of Chicago divest from fossil fuel assets. Throughout the seven year campaign, we relied on each other, our donors, and the many volunteers who worked on this issue to push it towards victory. In the end, the City of Chicago divested $70 millions dollars from fossil fuels in 2022, and we couldn’t have done it without her. Unfortunately, due to the demands of her new management position, she had to take a step back from 350 Chicago and we would like to thank her for all her hard work over the years, which made us all better activists. Good luck, Melissa!

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