Senator Chuck Wiger of Senate District 43 attends a binational climate meeting on March 18 with White Bear Lake city officials to discuss collaborative approaches to climate-smart.
Senator Wiger of SD43 joined the Climate Smart Municipality meeting on Thursday, March 18th, and met with city leaders from White Bear Lake and Lüdenscheid, Germany which is White Bear Lake’s sister-city in the program.
White Bear Lake Mayor Emerson was on the call along with Biehn and Hiniker. All are great advocates in sustainability work. The city of White Bear Lake has been making great efforts to become a more climate-smart community. The Climate Smart Municipalities program is organized by the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment and the German government and has the belief that “together, we are smarter!” Dr. Sabine Engel directs and leads the program. Selected cities are paired with award-winning climate-smart communities in Germany to help speed progress toward a cleaner and more efficient energy footprint. Senator Wiger and the leaders of White Bear Lake greatly appreciate this collaborative and beneficial international partnership!
More information on this partnership can be found on the White Bear Lake city website: https://www.whitebearlake.org/engineering/page/climate-smart-municipalities.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Commissioner Bishop also attended and gave an update on Minnesota’s work and goals to mitigate climate change. Minnesota is far behind our emission goals that were passed by a bipartisan legislature and signed into law by Governor Tim Pawlenty. She shared that the transportation and electricity sectors are where we need to decarbonize the most if we want to get on track. Minnesota’s greenhouse gas emissions have only decreased by 8% since 2005 when the goals were set.
Photo 1 caption: Senator Wiger, Mayor Jo Emerson, Councilmember Biehn, and Councilmember Hiniker from White Bear Lake and city officials from Lüdenscheid, Germany discussing sustainability efforts in their cities.
Photo 2 caption: Dr. Sabine Engel, Director of International Partnerships at the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment.
Photo 3 caption: Graph shared by MPCA Commissioner Bishop showing Minnesota is lagging on bipartisan emissions goals.
Photo 4 caption: Graph shared by MPCA Commissioner Bishop showing Minnesota’s highest emission sectors: electricity generation and transportation.
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