U.S. Mayors Take the Lead
What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, only a few hundred mayors had signed the Climate Protection Agreement. Today, more than 780 have signed on, committing their communities to take direct action to reduce their carbon emissions.
Mayors are idea people. They also know how to delegate. When they find an idea they like, they know how to activate a local network to make things happen. And unlike big business, they share BEST practices. If something works for them, they talk about it.
This week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors hosts its annual winter conference in Washington DC. Among the hundreds in attendance, there are 31 mayors showing up from California including San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom, 15 from Florida, and 2 from Colorado including Colorado Springs’ Mayor Lionel Rivera, and Mayor John Hickenlooper representing the City of Denver.
The City of Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie is also here. I’ll join the mayor in co-presenting the results of the Energy Futures program we ran last November on Votelink.
New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg will also show up, not to announce his candidacy for U.S. president, but to accept the Conference President’s Award for Leadership on Global Climate Protection.
Bloomberg is a strong advocate of the carbon tax. It’s an advocacy that requires both political and personal courage. It calls for a change in the tax system so that coal can be taxed at a rate that shows its environmental impact, thus forcing the cost of electricity generated by coal-fired power plants to sharply rise. The money collected from the tax can then be redirected toward renewable energy and energy conservation solutions.
Along with a carbon tax, these mayors could also take the bold step of asking Congress to remove subsidies from the oil and gas industry. Rising gas prices could solve congestion problems in most cities by driving transportation policies toward mass transit options, bikeways and pedestrian friendly walkways.
Once implemented, a carbon tax and removal of subsidies from the oil and gas industry – in incremental steps – would take us more than 50% of the way toward a Zero Emissions world. If we’re talking Save the World politics here, then it will take uncommon courage to lead the world back from the tipping point … the point of no return.