Last year, Austin Mayor Steve Adler traveled to France to pledge Austin’s support for the historic Paris Agreement, the world’s first global accord on climate change. Last week, Mayor Adler went to Mexico to try and make good on that promise.
With the Paris Agreement, nearly every country in the world pledged to reduce their own carbon emissions and in November, the agreement officially went into effect.
But since then, there has been uncertainty. President-elect Donald Trump has said that he would cancel America’s involvement in the agreement (although in recent interviews he has softened that stance slightly) and the agreement itself will only work if every country actually does what it has promised (and more).
So what happens now?
Now the world’s cities seem to be stepping up. Last week, Mayor Adler was in Mexico for the C40 Mayors Summit, which brings together mayors from a coalition representing 90 of the world’s cities, which includes 650 million people and one quarter of the global economy. Together, these cities are focused on ensuring that global emission reduction goals are met.
“In order for the world to reach the goals of the Paris agreement, cities and their mayors must lead the way – and they are, because they understand the major economic and public health benefits of fighting climate change,” said Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor and the President of the Board of C40.
At the conference last week, mayors from around the world swapped stories and shared knowledge so that they could learn from each other and discover the best ways to reduce carbon emissions in their own cities. Mayor Adler spoke on a panel entitled, “Compact, Connected, Resilient Cities: Planning our Future City.”
How will cities do this?
In order to ensure that cities can meet these goals, the C40 cities group recently published a guideline entitled, “Deadline 2020: How Cities Can Get the Job Done.” According to these guidelines, city leadership is crucial to emissions reduction. If all cities of 100,000 people or more act on the recommendations in the Deadline 2020 report, the world will achieve 40 percent of the emissions reductions necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change (1.5 Celsius temperature increase).
The Deadline 2020 guidelines point to a few key actions that cities should take to achieve climate reduction goals:
- Focusing on transit – the guidelines name transportation as the greatest challenge for emissions reduction, since many cities still rely on fossil fuel-powered cars
- Focus on smart urban planning – the guidelines report that the development of compact, connected, and coordinated cities enables significant indirect emissions savings
- Cities must eventually look beyond their own borders to encourage climate action at the regional and national levels as well
What is Austin’s role in all of this?
Over the years, Austin has established itself as a leader in climate action and sustainability. Here’s a refresher on some of the goals we’ve already committed to:
- Zero carbon emissions from city-owned operations by 2020
- Diverting 90 percent of our waste from the landfill by 2040
- Net-zero carbon emissions city-wide by 2050
- 55 percent renewable energy by 2025
Austin’s actions and commitments have had an effect not just here in Central Texas, but throughout the state. A major solar purchase made by our electric utility last year more than doubled the entire amount of solar in the state of Texas.
But just because we have all of these impressive sounding goals does not necessarily mean that they will come to fruition. That will require constant action and community involvement.
That’s where we all come in. Take transportation for example. Transportation is currently responsible for a third of our greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing that number will require action from our local government to create better public transportation options, but it will also require participation from all of us. Things like buses and bike lanes only work if people actually decide to use them.
