Clinton Foundation Announces Multi-City Climate Initiative
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 08. 3.06
While some may debate the environmental legacy of Bill Clinton's presidency, the former US chief executive now seems "focused like a laser beam" on ecological challenges and their economic effects. Yesterday in Los Angeles, Clinton presided over a gathering of mayors from cities around the world to announce the launch of his foundation's Clinton Climate Initiative, and its first project: a partnership with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group. The partnership aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from urban areas, which account for 75% of all such emissions. Among the steps they plan to take:
While many of the world's cities have been at the forefront of addressing climate change, the CCI-LCCLG partnership intends to systematize these efforts and, hopefully, increase their effectiveness. The cities involved in the initiative are Berlin, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Caracas, Chicago, Delhi, Dhaka, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Toronto, and Warsaw. ::The William J. Clinton Foundation via ENN
- Create a purchasing consortium that will pool the purchasing power of the cities to lower the prices of energy saving products and accelerate the development and deployment of new energy saving and greenhouse gas reducing technologies and products. This will be similar to the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative total quality management approach that has substantially lowered AIDS drug prices for members of its purchasing consortium.
- Mobilize the best experts in the world to provide technical assistance to cities to develop and implement plans that will result in greater energy efficiency and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
- Create and deploy common measurement tools and internet based communications systems that will allow cities to establish a baseline on their greenhouse gas emissions, measure the effectiveness of the program in reducing these emissions and to share what works and does not work with each other.
