Kyoto Comes to the US
Another item I blogged about while in Paris was an editorial from the London Guardian about how cities must be at the forefront of enacting sensible energy policy in the face of encroaching climate change/global warming:

It hhas fallen to cities to lead the way. Tired of the intransigence of national and multinational government, civic leaders are starting to act unilaterally to counter the spectre of global warming. And so they should. Cities are the primary greenhouse gas contributors; just 11 of them produce 70% of global carbon dioxide emissions. London itself emits over 40m tons of CO2 each year -- more than Portugal or Greece.

The message has come to the US, with the NYTimes this morning on a coalition of 131 mayors across the country and across the political spectrum--led by Seattle's own Greg "Hoss" Nickels--who are pledging to have their cities adhere to the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol:

Unsettled by a series of dry winters in this normally wet city, Mayor Greg Nickels has begun a nationwide effort to do something the Bush administration will not: carry out the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. [...[ The mayors, from cities as liberal as Los Angeles and as conservative as Hurst, Tex., represent nearly 29 million citizens in 35 states, according to Mayor Nickels's office. They are pledging to have their cities meet what would have been a binding requirement for the nation had the Bush administration not rejected the Kyoto Protocol: a reduction in heat-trapping gas emissions to levels 7 percent below those of 1990, by 2012. On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought New York City into the coalition, the latest Republican mayor to join. Mr. Nickels said that to achieve the 7 percent reduction, Seattle was requiring cruise ships that dock in its bustling port to turn off their diesel engines while resupplying and to rely only on electric power provided by the city, a requirement that has forced some ships to retrofit. And by the end of this year the city's power utility, Seattle City Light, will be the only utility in the country with no net emissions of greenhouse gases, the mayor's office said. Salt Lake City has become Utah's largest buyer of wind power in order to meet its reduction target. In New York, the Bloomberg administration is trying to reduce emissions from the municipal fleet by buying hybrid electric-gasoline-powered vehicles. Nathan Mantua, assistant director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington, which estimates the impact of global warming on the Northwest, said the coalition's efforts were laudable, but probably of limited global impact.

True, overall, it probably won't put a dent in the hotting up of the planet. But it's a start toward contemplating and discussing changes to infrastructure and green consumer products (i.e., vehicles), something that the disingenuous Bush administration can't even contemplate:

Michele St. Martin, communications director for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Kyoto Protocol would have resulted in a loss of five million jobs in the United States and could raise energy prices. Ms. St. Martin said President Bush "favors an aggressive approach" on climate change, "one that fosters economic growth that will lead to new technology and innovation." But many of the mayors said they were acting precisely out of concern for the economic vitality of their cities. Mr. Nickels, for example, pointed out that the dry winters and the steep decline projected in the glaciers of the Cascade range could affect Seattle's supply of drinking water and hydroelectric power. The mayor of low-lying New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, a Democrat, said he joined the coalition because a projected rise in sea levels "threatens the very existence of New Orleans." In Hawaii, the mayor of Maui County, Alan Arakawa, a Republican, said he joined because he was frustrated by the administration's slowness to recognize the scientific consensus that climate change was happening because of human interference. "I'm hoping it sends a message they really need to start looking at what's really happening in the real world," Mayor Arakawa said.