|
International Mayors Address Climate Change
June 2, 2005
San Francisco is hosting an international gathering
of mayors from more than 70 major cities, including London, Rio de
Janeiro, Tehran, Cape Town, Sydney, and Shanghai. They are here to
attend a five-day conference of local leaders titled “Green Cities”
and dealing specifically with climate change.
San Francisco is the first U.S. city to host this
conference, which since 1974 annually leads up to the United Nations’
World Environment Day on June 5. With half the world’s population
already living in cities and the percentage rising every year,
municipal leaders feel they are in the forefront of dealing with the
world’s environmental challenges.
For more on the conference, see a May 31 article
distributed by the Associated Press.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8044734/
Also attending will be Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols,
who garnered nationwide attention last month by convincing
high-profile U.S. mayors to support of the U.S. Mayors Climate
Protection Agreement. The agreement calls for cities to reduce their
emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 7% lower
than their emissions in 1990.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed the
agreement on May 12. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin also signed,
saying that rising sea levels caused by global warming “threaten the
very existence of New Orleans.” See the May 14 article in the New York
Times (after you register for free access):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/national/14kyoto.html
To date more than 152 cities have signed the U.S.
Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, collectively representing 31
million people. In Colorado, Boulder Mayor Mark Ruzzin and Denver
Mayor John Hickenlooper have signed on. Seattle Mayor Greg Nichol
publishes the text of and a more complete list of cities that have
signed the mayor’s agreement.
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/mayor/issues/EAA/ |
