Local communities need to step up climate change efforts

 

 

A major component of world action to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb global warming is to take action ASAP in our communities, at the ground level.  The Sierra Club, with its massive grassroots possibilities, is an important catalyst and activist in these efforts.

At the Paris summit on climate change, after critical and challenging negotiations, nearly 200 countries made concrete commitments to reduce climate change.  This obviously needs to be a comprehensive approach for all sectors of the world’s economies.

However, much of New York’s work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has focused on the large-scale production and transmission of electricity. Governor Cuomo’s recent announcement about his Clean Energy Standard is encouraging because it emphasizes the need to act in all sectors and set some new, earlier targets for action.  The Cuomo administration needs to work with many stakeholders to set and enable hard but realistic targets with time deadlines for emission reductions.

Much of the creativity and concrete initiatives for action need to start in our localities with the involvement of the full range of stakeholders, including local government, the business community, environmentalists, the environmental justice community, labor, faith-based communities, and others.

Living in Albany, I have been pleased to learn about some local actions affecting my community and others like it.  In conjunction with the People’s Climate Movement and the Paris Summit, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan recently issued a press release emphasizing Albany’s major actions to move toward sustainability by signing the global Compact of Mayors. (New York City and Rochester are also Compact cities.)  

Albany has been taking action in many sectors for some years, including becoming a Climate Smart Community under the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s program.  Leaders of the Hudson-Mohawk Group have been working on the Mayor’s Sustainability Committee. (To read more, go to http://www.albanyny.org, then News and then Press Release, 12/8).

My Assembly representative, Patricia Fahy, recently announced that the governor signed legislation she sponsored to enable localities to purchase their street lights from utilities and to then convert them to LED lighting, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving utility costs. This is an example of the many ways localities and their stakeholders can work to curb climate change. “Sustainable” cities, towns, and counties can also pool resources to produce solar energy  in their communities. This is just a short list of what can be done, especially by linking with other stakeholders as part of the People’s Climate Movement.

To get involved with the Sierra Club, you can reach out to our Chapter Energy Committee and Gas Task Force and to leaders in your regional Sierra Club Group. (Go to the Chapter website for contact information at newyork.sierraclub.org). 

We are eager to engage with our members and supporters around the state and multiply efforts to drastically reduce global warming in constructive and effective ways. If you are not doing so, you can also reach out to others in your locality who are working on these issues — linking our efforts is core to the People’s Climate Movement. 

Please speak with me and other Chapter and Group leaders about your interests, concerns and efforts in your community.