Mayor Nutter is calling out U.S. Mayors to create climate action plans

Michael A. Nutter, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, and Mayor Annise Parker of Houston, kicked off the #ClimateMayors twitter campaign today, with 100 days left before the opening of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris, France on November 30, 2015.

The three mayors, who co-founded the U.S.-based Mayors’ National Climate Action Agenda (MNCAA), echoed President Obama’s remarks made yesterday at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, NV, by calling for their fellow mayors to join them in the MNCAA and commit to creating climate action plans for their cities.

The MNCAA is a domestic, mayor-to-mayor initiative to help cities set significant emission reduction targets; standardize municipal inventories to be able to better compare data between cities regardless of size; establish a U.S. template for climate action plans; and develop a municipal off-set protocol. The MNCAA includes 28 U.S. cities, and has an international level counterpart,  the Compact of Mayors, a global cooperative effort among more than 100 mayors and city officials committed to reducing local greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing resilience to climate change, and tracking progress transparently.  

“Climate change isn’t a political issue–it’s a reality for cities, many of which are right now enduring drought, extreme weather, and wildfires as a result,” Mayors Nutter, Garcetti and Parker said in a joint statement. “As President Obama said at the Clean Energy Summit, the Clean Power Plan and other efforts to produce clean energy are critical for our Nation’s economy. These efforts are big steps forward, but we need Congress to step up and support binding U.S. greenhouse gas reduction targets.

“That’s why we are kicking off our #ClimateMayors campaign in the final 100 days before the opening of the COP21 discussions in Paris.  As we said in June, we call on our federal leaders to pursue the strongest possible agreement in Paris and urge our fellow mayors to help us convey this message by signing the Compact of Mayors, committing to city-level climate action plans and joining with us in the MNCAA.”

Over the past year, Philadelphia city departments have been working as part of an inter-agency working group to bring those projections into an active planning process to effectively integrate climate considerations into decision making processes.This fall, the City will publish a report identifying risk and climate action opportunities across city government operations.

Images via Kait Privitera for the City of Philadelphia