How Green is My City?

Excerpt

“Climate of hope: US cities lead the way.”1 A mistake, surely? Here in Europe the United States is not usually seen as being in the vanguard of campaigns against global warming. However, even President George W. Bush has turned a little greener recently although not yet adopting the vivid shade of, say, Al Gore or Bill Clinton. So perhaps the mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels, is not mistaken in his optimism about what cities can achieve collectively via forums such as the US Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement.1 In the UK, the major political parties are tripping over themselves in the race to be seen as the one with the most aggressive policies on greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, so powerful is this political consensus that one could be forgiven for fearing for a shortage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) at some future date. The budget of March 21, 2007 saw a further assault on gas-guzzling vehicles and the week before had witnessed the arrival of the Climate Change Bill, which mandates reductions in CO₂ of 26–32% by 2020 (the European Union’s target is only 20%) and of 60% 30 years after that.2 Such targets are certainly ambitious, but even if achieved would be meaningless unless other countries follow suit; the UK’s contribution to CO₂ is only 2% of the world total. The Bill is not concerned with cities specifically but just as single nations can only achieve so much, so it is with cities, and we should be asking if there are limits to what urban government can do. …