Why Cities & CEOs Can’t Relax

America’s mayors, governors and CEOs may be feeling a sense of relief now that Congress shows signs of movement on a climate bill.

Over the past decade, some of them have stuck their necks out and spent their political capital on climate policy. Now, Congress is taking the heat.

Unfortunately, there is no rest ahead for anyone, not if we’re going to cut our greenhouse gas emissions back to levels we haven’t seen in a generation or more. Whatever agreements emerge from Congress this summer and from Copenhagen in December, the fate of the planet will remain largely in the hands of our corporations and cities. 

That’s a message I will deliver June 3 to corporate and local leaders from Europe and the United States at the World Investment Conference in La Baule, France, where the topic will be trans-Atlantic cooperation on building sustainable cities.

We can’t count on Washington or Copenhagen to solve the climate and energy problems. The most important leadership ahead still will come from cities and CEOs.

So far in the United States, there has been good news and bad news on climate leadership from those two sectors.

The good news: In the absence of coherent national policy, more than 940 mayors now have signed the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, committing at minimum to meet Kyoto targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Most states are implementing or developing their own climate action plans. Four regions are implementing or developing emissions-reduction schemes. Twenty-five corporations, including some of America’s largest, have partnered with environmental organizations in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership to push for carbon pricing.

Several companies are showing exemplary individual leadership. I’ve written before about Interface, the Atlanta-based international carpet manufacturer that has set a zero-waste, zero-emissions goal and is fasting approaching it.

General Electric is another example. The company’s carbon-cutting products range from wind turbines to super-efficient light bulbs. GE is investing in smart-grid development. It wants its green-product revenues to grow to $25 billion next year, up from $6 billion only five years ago. It just announced it will invest $1.5 billion yearly in clean-tech research by next year.

The bad news: The 940 cities who have endorsed Kyoto are only a fraction of the 40,000 local governments and nearly 20,000 cities in the United States.

At the U.S. chapter of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, which runs an important five-step program to help mayors move beyond their photo ops to achieve real emissions reductions, only about 550 cities have signed on to date. Only about half have made it to Step 3 – meaning they’ve inventoried their carbon emissions, set reduction targets and created action plans; only 30 have reached Step 5 to implement their plans and monitor progress. More cities should be taking advantage of ICLEI’s help.

In the corporate world, the most aggressive emissions reduction target advocated by U.S. CAP – a cut of 6.75% below 1990 levels by 2020 – is far less aggressive than the caps put forward by the international and scientific communities. China wants developed economies to cut their emissions more than 36% below 1990 by 2020. The IPCC's recommended 25-40%.

At the federal level, the Waxman-Markey bill so far calls for reductions of only 3.26% compared to 1990 levels – less than half the cuts that U.S. CAP endorsed and only about 10% of the cuts advocated by China and the EU.