US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement

Recently, Jonathan Stokes, a frequent commentator on CenLamar and the owner of Renegade Cashew Productions, wrote a letter to the Town Talk noting that Alexandria is one of only two cities in the State of Louisiana that signed the US Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement (New Orleans is the other city). The agreement was signed by former Alexandria Mayor Ned Randolph. Stokes writes:

While this is almost certainly old news to many Alexandrians, it was the first I had heard of this, and I was thrilled. It was yet one more testament to the ground breaking, bold leadership of former Mayor Ned Randolph. Thank you, Mayor Randolph, for taking such an initiative. I hope the current administration continues to pursue efforts that combat our community’s contributions to global warming.

According to the Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, as of January 2007, “367 mayors from both political parties representing more than 55 million Americans in all fifty states and Washington, D.C. have signed on. Mayors of seven of the ten largest US cities have signed along with mid-size and smaller cities.” The US Conference of Mayors unanimously endorsed the agreement in June of 2005.

The Office of the Mayor of Seattle explains:

Climate disruption is an urgent threat to the environmental and economic health of our communities. Many cities, in this country and abroad, already have strong local policies and programs in place to reduce global warming pollution, but more action is needed at the local, state, and federal levels to meet the challenge. On February 16, 2005 the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to address climate disruption, became law for the 141 countries that have ratified it to date. On that day, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels launched this initiative to advance the goals of the Kyoto Protocol through leadership and action by at least 141 American cities. Mayor Nickels, along with a growing number of other US mayors, is leading the development of a US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement ; our goal was for at least 141 mayors to sign onto the Agreement by the time of the U.S. Conference of Mayors June 2005 meeting in Chicago .

Under the Agreement, participating cities commit to take following three actions:

• Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;
• Urge their state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol — 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and
• Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.