NEW YORK — The 120 world leaders meeting at Tuesday’s United Nations climate summit hoping to break years of gridlock on international negotiations might benefit from looking at cities for inspiration.
Cities could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that most climate scientists say drive global warming 24 percent by 2030 and 47 percent by 2050, according to a report from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, which is headed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Some cities are already starting to make commitments. The Democratic mayors of Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia started a program Monday that aims to set binding greenhouse gas emission reduction goals, develop a municipal metric for measuring emissions and support projects that offset emissions, such as planting more trees.
“It feels like after a long time of there being a turning away of attention on the environment, there’s a turning back to this issue,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at a Monday news conference at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
Their aim is to build support for a parallel agreement for cities during the run-up to formal U.N. climate negotiations next year in Paris, and they say they’re well-positioned to meet their goals.
“The reality is that the work is going to be done in cities. It will be done mostly by mayors. And then we will drive our respective nations’ national agendas around these issues,” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said.
The U.N. report released Tuesday, which claims to quantify cities’ emissions for the first time, agrees.
“Cities have unique and strong influence over several policy levers — such as urban planning and public transportation that make them critical actors in reducing [greenhouse gas] emissions, avoiding further carbon lock-in, and decreasing the cost of future abatement,” said the report, which was drafted in partnership with Bloomberg’s C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Waste management and recycling, which also affect greenhouse gases, fall under city government as well.
Cities could reduce global emissions 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 and up to 8 gigatons by 2050. For contrast, the International Energy Agency predicts emissions would hit 55 gigatons in 2050, up from 31 gigatons in 2010, if nothing is done to address them.
“National policymakers can use this information to place greater emphasis on the role of cities, and thus help inform and strengthen their national [greenhouse gas] reduction contributions,” the report suggested. “City policymakers can use the findings to inform the type of actions that may have the greatest global impact.”
Cities are also simply easier to manage than national governments, both bureaucratically and politically.
How the U.S. must navigate the U.N. process is a case in point.
It was absent from a World Bank pledge by 73 countries, including China, that called for a carbon price. Doing so in the U.S., however, would be anathema to Republicans and industry officials.
The Obama administration also is reportedly seeking a “politically binding” climate treaty, rather than a legally binding pact, to bring home to the Senate after formal negotiations next year in Paris. That’s because it’s unlikely to get the 67 votes it needs for ratification, as Republicans and centrist Democrats would likely object.
The White House, though, recognizes the effect cities can have on reducing emissions.
Last week, it announced 28 new additions to the administration’s “Better Buildings Challenge,” which aims to slash emissions from buildings. Government entities such as New York state and the Houston Housing Authority are some of the new participants.
While the announcement didn’t grab many headlines, targeting buildings is hardly nibbling at the margins as they consume 40 percent of the nation’s energy.
The Bloomberg C40 report saw buildings as the greatest potential for reductions as well. Energy efficiency retrofits, more stringent building codes and tougher energy performance standards for lighting and appliances topped the list of recommendations.
Many mayors see improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions as a winning proposition.
“It may very well be a partisan issue in Washington. What we’re trying to say is we’re working at the local level,” Houston Mayor Annise Parker said. “We ignore those kinds of partisan divides.”
Cities will continue to be a focus of climate discussions, said Shaun Donovan, who heads the White House Office of Management and Budget. He noted last week that rapid urbanization has, for the first time in human history, led to a majority of the world’s populations living in cities.
Many of those cities are densely populated. They also are near coastal areas and subject to the rising sea levels associated with climate change. With a good portion of those cities resting in developing countries, many are susceptible to shocks in food prices that scientists say climate change could exacerbate.
“Today, the world mega-cities represent 50 percent of the population,” Parker said. “That number will only grow. As mayors make decisions — particularly decisions that influence climate change — we can tip the balance in the right direction.”
