Mayors say cities take the lead on climate-change initiatives

Cities must take the lead on climate change because “the feds have fumbled the ball,” Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz told a National Press Club Newsmakers press event Oct. 8.

“I don’t think we need to be captive to the dysfunction that happens in D.C. any more. There’s an opportunity for cities to take the lead, an opportunity for cities to use our market power individually and collectively,” Berkowitz said. “It is part of the responsibility we have to the people we serve.”

Anchorage is home to 300,000 people who “live with climate change every day because we are the gateway to the Arctic,” Berkowitz said. In January 2014, it was colder in New York than it was in Anchorage, he added.

Berkowitz believes he will be criticized for his views but that is “backwash from Washington,” he said. There shouldn’t be a debate about whether climate change exists, he said. “The notion that you debate science in a partisan context is a little bizarre,” he said.

Joining Berkowitz at the Newsmakers event was Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and Fumiko Hayashi, mayor of Yokohama, Japan. The three are participating in an initiative known as “Our Cities, Our Climate (OC2)”. It is sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the U.S. Department of State. Events have recently been held in San Francisco and Boston.

The “grave consequences of climate change have been happening in our cities,” Hayashi said through a translator.

Yokohama is a model city for reducing emissions, Hayashi said. It is the first city in the world to buy a fleet of fuel-cell vehicles, she said. For the vehicles to operate the city has to install hydrogen stations. Six stations are expected to be operational by the end of the year. Each station costs 500 million yen ($4.17 million), she said.

Boston has swapped out its street lights for LED lighting and changed its trash delivery to encourage more recycling, Walsh said. The efforts have saved the city $1.4 billion annually, he said. Other cities can benefit from Boston’s example, he said. “By changing your lights and the ways trash is delivered, you actually save your cities money,” he said.

The mayors did not advocate any specific regulatory changes but rather see the OC2 initiative as a way to share best practices.

“There is a lot of regulation that we could do at the state, national and local level but it is not about forcing regulations, it is about how we get to a point. That is why we have goals,” Walsh said.

Businesses have to adapt to climate change, Berkowitz said. “There are benefits for them when they do and there are costs for them when they don’t,” he said. Conoco-Phillips, which has seen the impact of climate change on the permafrost, is a leader, he noted.