[SustainableTompkins] In emissions battle, US cities vie to be 'greenest'

[GayNicholson at aol.com]

from the October 25, 2006 edition -  
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1025/p01s01-uspo.html  
In  emissions battle, US cities vie to be 'greenest' 
More than 300 mayors pledge to reduce greenhouse gases.  
By _Ron  Scherer_ 
(http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/encryptmail.pl?ID=D2EFEEA0D3E3E8E5F2E5F2)  | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor  
NEW  YORK  
Cities often compete against one another: in the World Series, the right to  
host the Olympics, the battle to attract employers. 
Now, some urban areas are starting a new race: to lead the nation in reducing 
 greenhouse gases. In Massachusetts, the mayors of Salem and Worcester are  
competing to see who can sign up more customers for green power. 
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says he wants to make his city the greenest in  
America, and to back that up, the Windy City is planting trees, creating more  
rooftop gardens, and fast-tracking green buildings. 
Wait a New York minute, Chicago. Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced  
intentions to make the Big Apple the leader in reducing greenhouse gases. 
The concept is relatively simple: act locally to reduce global warming. This  
means city councils from Cambridge, Mass., to Seattle are changing building  
codes, beginning to encourage nonautomobile transport, and setting targets for 
 carbon-dioxide reduction. The potential for greenhouse-gas reductions could  
eventually become significant, since cities are some of the major producers 
of  greenhouse gases. 
In all, some 319 mayors representing more than 51.4 million Americans have  
pledged they will attain the goals of the 1997 Kyoto agreement in their cities, 
 even though the United States has not ratified the protocol. "The cities can 
do  a lot to lead by example," says Andrew Shapiro, founder of GreenOrder, a  
sustainability strategy and marketing firm in New York. "Cities are where the 
 majority of influencers are, such as the press, financiers, big company  
headquarters." 
One organization that green-conscious cities can join is ICLEI, an  
international sustainable-development clearinghouse. Last year, half of the 212  member 
cities reported reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by a total of 23  million 
tons. (Cities are not obligated to report reductions.) This resulted in  a 
savings of $550 million, due largely to increased energy efficiency. 
ICLEI is providing members with computer software to help identify potential  
improvements. "It shows them how to start with the lowest hanging fruit and 
then  move on to the more substantial changes," says Michelle Wyman, the 
Oakland,  Calif.-based executive director. 
Some cities have been actively involved in the process of reducing  
greenhouse-gas emissions for some time. That's the case with Seattle, which last  month 
announced a plan by 2012 to reduce emissions by 7 percent, enough to meet  
the goal of the Kyoto Protocol. 
Some solutions in Seattle involve shifting the entire municipal fleet to  
biodiesel, getting cruise ships to plug into the electrical system instead of  
running their engines when in port, and passing a green building code. 
"We're also planning to launch a drive-smart campaign that examines your  
driving choices from operating the car to tire inflation," says Steve Nicholas,  
the city's director of the Office of Sustainability. 
Next month, ICLEI will try to persuade yet more mayors to join. It expects to 
 host 50 mayors at Robert Redford's Sundance resort in Utah. Two-thirds of 
them  are known to be skeptics. However, "Some of the skeptics in the past are 
now our  strongest supporters," says Ms. Wyman. 
Achieving significant reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions will be a  
challenge for some cities. New York City currently represents about 2 percent of  
the nation's entire CO2 emissions. Most of its buildings are old and would  
require a significant investment to make them more energy-efficient. 
"How many people regulate their heat in the winter by just opening their  
window?" asks Marc Brammer, executive director of New York Climate Rescue, a  
volunteer organization. 
On a walk around midtown New York, Mr. Brammer stops outside a large  
condominium. There are no solar panels and no indications of any green  technology. 
Like those in many New York buildings, he points out the boiler is  likely to 
be 40 years old. "When will the city take on the real estate industry,  the 
biggest political player, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and tell them  what 
they have to do?" he asks. 
But Brammer also points out that the city is full of opportunities. There are 
 enormous diesel fleets in New York, ranging from sanitation trucks to 
delivery  trucks to Con Edison vehicles. And most of the city's ferries run on oil. 
"Right  now, there is no biodiesel sold in the Tri-State area," he says. "Look 
at all  the restaurants that fry food. With the old grease, we could run 
fleets of  garbage and delivery trucks, and it would all be locally produced." 
New York is still in the planning process for how it will implement the  
mayor's contention that the city will lead the nation in emission reductions.  The 
heads of all the major city agencies are part of a committee studying the  
issue. 
"The mayor has convened this group to thoroughly map out and do a  
community-wide assessment, not just a reduction in municipal emissions," says  Michael 
Northrop, program director for Sustainable Development at the  Rockefeller 
Brothers Fund. He says the report should be issued in the next two  months. 
While the city works on its report, the City Council is debating a proposal  
to commit the city to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent by 
2009  and 30 percent by 2020. "In the last 10 years, the city has been doing 
things  that give us optimism in the direction we are going," says Ashok Gupta, 
director  of air and energy programs at the Natural Resource Defense Council in 
New  York. 
_Full HTML  version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and 
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----------------------------------------------------
Gay  Nicholson, Ph.D. 

607-533-7312 (home office)
607-279-6618  (cell)

1 Maple Avenue
Lansing, NY  14882
gaynicholson at aol.com

Sustainable Tompkins 
Program  Coordinator 
w_ww.sustainabletompkins.org_ (http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/) 

Southern Tier Energy$mart Communities
Regional  Coordinator
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
615 Willow  Ave., Ithaca, NY  14850
agn1 at cornell.edu