Westminster Common Council had introduced a resolution to combat global warming ? but stops short of a national agreement.
“There is some controversy about global warming, but everyone agrees that to some extent, man-made pollution affects climates,” Council Member Gregory Pecoraro said. “As a city government, we acknowledge that we have a responsibility to take some positive action on this.”
In January, volunteers with the Catoctin Group, a Sierra Club chapter, asked the council and Mayor Thomas Ferguson to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, as 400 local governments nationwide have done.
Baltimore, Annapolis, Sykesville, Rockville, Gaithersburg and Chevy Chase, as well as Howard and Anne Arundel counties, signed the agreement, which asks officials to reduce greenhouse gases to 7 percent below1990 levels in five years, according to the Sierra Club.
Westminster?s resolution is comparable but not identical to the Sierra Club?s pledge, Council Member Robert Wack said.
“Our own version is 80 to 90 percent the same with just a couple of specific clauses” eliminated, he said.
Council members couldn?t agree on the exact predictions about global warming?s negative impact on the environment and decided to introduce a resolution without the “speculation,” he said.
“We use too much energy and emit too much carbon dioxide, so why not focus on that rather than get bogged down on whether it?s going to be 2 or 4 feet of sea rise?” Wack said.
The city?s version excludes the deadline of 2012 for reducing greenhouse gases, removing any “definable goals,” said Dan Andrews, energy chairman of the Catoctin Group. But “it?s a good first step,” he said.
Westminster officials expect to sign the resolution next month.
