Cities Solution to Climate Change

Hello Readers,

This weekend, I came across an interesting New York Times article about the joint efforts of Bill Clinton and Mayor Bloomberg in combating climate change from a city level. Mayor Bloomberg's private organization has donated 3 years of funding to a Clinton Foundation initiative: C40. C40 is a group of 40 of the world's largest cities working together to combat the effects of climate change.

The mayors of all 40 of these cites will be meeting in São Paulo, Brazil this week to discuss topics such as energy efficient buildings, renewable energy in urban settings, next generation buses, and other pertinent topics. The American cities involved in C40 are New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles.

As the NYT article points out, more than half of the world's population now lives in cities. These city dwellers are now using 70% of the world's energy and are responsible for 70% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Or as Mayor Bloomberg puts it: "If you address the problems of the cities, there will be no need for China and India to sign onto some international accord. And thank God, because that’s not going to get done. It’s time to say it."

While the efforts of the C40 - a top-down approach to combating climate change at a local level - are amazing and long overdue, it seems that they could be much more successful if they are complimented by citizen actions in the Transition Town model. This compliment will be especially important in smaller towns and cities, which do not necessarily have the capital or population density to organize their own public transportation and other initiatives.

Thank a soldier today!
Sean Diamond