Carey L Biron
During the four years of the Donald Trump administration, US cities felt they were largely on their own to take action on climate change, officials said, even as many voters pushed for swifter change.
Now, as President Joe Biden moves into his fourth month in office and prepares to unveil his administration’s updated climate plans this week, city officials say they feel relief and a sense of opportunity.
“I am so, so happy to have a partner in the White House again on climate action,” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway of Madison, Wisconsin, said.
She urged the federal government now to “trust cities” to help drive needed action.
Madison has been implementing a suite of climate policies, including switching to 100 per cent renewable energy in its municipal facilities by the end of the decade, building a bus rapid transit system and training people to work in green energy jobs.
But on some needed action the city’s hands are tied, the mayor said, pointing to building codes set at the state and federal level.
“That’s a huge barrier to progress,” said Rhodes-Conway, the co-chair of Climate Mayors, a national network that has grown from 40 to 474 cities since 2014.
During the Trump administration, when federal climate policy came to a virtual standstill, cities such as Madison “never stopped working on climate at the local level,” she said.
Now “the federal government needs to catch up and listen to cities,” she urged. A report published on Wednesday by Climate Mayors, a bipartisan network of US mayors, calls for more direct, flexible federal funding for city climate action.
It outlines the need for shifted policies around making buildings and transit greener, adopting more renewable energy and protecting nature and the services it provides.
“It’s a remarkable new day. We spent the last four years in some ways fighting off the federal government,” said Daniel A. Zarrilli, chief climate policy adviser for the mayor of New York. But that period also led to major recognition of how much can be done at city level, and how much cities can help meet national and international climate goals. Now US city officials say they’re not stepping back from that leadership role just because the federal government is back in the game.
“That coalition is now standing up and saying … we’re ready to run. We’re not just going to hand the ball back to the feds,” Zarrilli said.
PIVOT POINT
A key preview of an expanded role for cities may take place this week, when Biden has invited 40 world leaders to participate in a climate summit on Thursday and Friday, with action in cities a key focus.
An updated US pledge of emissions reductions by 2030 also is expected.
“Our hope is that will include a specific focus and investment strategy around urban action,” said Amanda Eichel, executive director of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.
— Thomson Reuters Foundation
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