Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Bloomberg Philanthropies named Chicago as a winning city in the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge. The Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge is a $70-million-dollar program that will accelerate 20 cities’ efforts to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable future for residents. Through the Climate Challenge – which is part of Bloomberg’s American Cities Initiative – Chicago is accepted into a two-year acceleration program that will provide new resources and access to cutting-edge support to help achieve an accelerated emissions reduction. Bloomberg Philanthropies selected Chicago as a winning city because of its innovative and ambitious climate action plans to reduce air pollution and city-wide emissions with specific projects aimed at reforming transit and buildings sectors. Bloomberg Philanthropies will work the city to achieve the following actions:

• Accelerating energy code compliance and city workforce training.

• Encouraging new low-carbon mobility options, such as expanding bike-share to reach 100 percent of the City and developing policies that support car sharing and transit ridership while reducing vehicle ownership.

• Defining and expand the high-frequency public transit network to increase ridership by developing a strategy for increasing services.

• Creating an electric vehicle and solar readiness framework.

• Expanding renewable energy procurement and the solar workforce to meet municipal electricity demand.

As Climate Challenge winners, Chicago along with the other winning cities will be accepted into a two-year acceleration program with powerful new resources and access to cutting-edge support, led by experts at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Delivery Associates and others, to help them meet – or beat – their near-term carbon reduction goals, from creating high-impact policies to putting them into action.