Warming Globally, Acting Locally

Scott Paul and Samuel Stein
December 16, 2005



Scott Paul is a Program Coordinator and Samuel Stein is the Press Secretary at Citizens for Global Solutions.

At least a few American news publications have dubbed President Bush the modern day Nero for his inattentiveness to global warming and his obstructionism at the U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Montreal. But such a characterization cannot be extended to the United States as a nation; as President Bush plays the fiddle while the world warms around him, local American leaders are moving the United States forward in spite of his stubborn refusal to confront climate change, one of the most daunting challenges of our time.

If the events in Montreal have shown us anything, it is that President Bush is incapable of preventing a timely and historic re-orientation toward clean, renewable energy. Much as the administration would like the United States to stay on the sidelines in the fight against climate change, mayors and local officials are making that impossible. This is unprecedented: throughout history, heads of state, and occasionally national legislatures, have determined their nations' identities in the world. In today's America, however, mayors and sub-national legislators, with their bold action to fight climate change, are setting the course. For perhaps the first time ever, local governments are carving out a nation's role in the world.

While municipalities have a long history as laboratories for progress, 2005 was the year in which U.S. cities filled the leadership vacuum left vacated by the Bush administration when it decided that a livable world for future generations was not a national priority. In 2005—the first year in which cities comprised over half of the world's population—mayors created two comprehensive treaty systems to promote cooperation on environmental issues. In mid-June, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously approved the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement; today, 195 mayors—representing more than 40 million Americans and a substantial portion of America's greenhouse gas emissions—have signed on. Earlier that month, a group of more than 50 mayors from around the world launched the Urban Environmental Accords on World Environment Day in San Francisco. The Accords continue to gain steam at home and abroad.

The two agreements have different strategies, but both will achieve the same goal: coordinated local action to make a difference on a global scale. Municipal leaders took another giant step forward this week in Montreal. The "World Mayors and Municipal Leaders Declaration on Climate Change," released on Thursday, calls for a 30 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. By comparison, the Kyoto Protocol's target is 5.2 percent by 2012.

More importantly, they come at a critically important moment. Global temperatures have risen steadily, with eight of the 10 hottest years on record occurring in the past decade and with 2005 on track to be the hottest year since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. If it continues, this trend will have severe implications for communities around the world, including droughts, more severe hurricanes, higher sea levels and unpredictable disease patterns. What's worse, it will be low-income, indigenous and marginalized communities that will be hardest hit without a deliberate and ambitious set of policies to combat climate change.

Mayors aren't the only U.S. officials who made waves in Montreal. Over the week, a bipartisan group of 24 U.S. Senators wrote a letter to President Bush, expressing serious concerns about the deliberate decision of the U.S. delegation to refuse to engage in negotiations. The letter came just days after seven northeast states decided to move forward with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an agreement that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions levels by 10 percent by the year 2020.

In light of this activity at the grassroots level, one would think—wait for the pun—that the heat is on the Bush administration to set a clear course for the nation. Yet in Montreal, the Bush administration merely stuck its head in the sand while nearly every other industrialized country indicated a willingness to make even more ambitious commitments.

That's not to say that the international community was indifferent to President Bush's inaction. The boldest denunciation of the Bush position came from Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, who said: "To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say there is such a thing as a global conscience, and now is the time to listen to it."

Prime Minister Martin and the rest of the world community are right to be angered at the Bush administration for its opposition to making concrete commitments. But Martin and others should not despair. Local leaders in the U.S. are doing their part to keep the world hospitable for future generations, and in so doing, are setting the nation's course. If President Bush chooses to maintain his stubborn stance, he may find himself in a position he fears far more than that of the obstructionist: He may, in fact, become irrelevant.