NEW YORK—Mayor Michael Bloomberg made an appearance in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, to attend the Rio + C40: Megacity Mayors Taking Action on Climate Change conference.
With New York City—and 90 percent of world’s urban areas—settled on a coastline, urban cities are considered one of the most at risk places for the consequences of climate change.
Mayor Bloomberg is the chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), a network of national and international cities that are working to implement sustainable climate-related actions.
The group has found that the 59 participating cities have the potential to reduce their combined annual greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by over a billion tons by 2030, which is the annual GHG emissions of Mexico and Canada combined.
C40 believes that climate-related actions start on a local level, such as New York City, which will eventually effect national and global change.
“As the mayor of New York, I am proud to point out, for example, that my city has shrunk our carbon footprint by some 13 percent in the past five years alone,” Bloomberg said.
“And we, in unison with other C40 cities, have projects in place to reduce GHG by almost 250 megatons a year by the end of this decade,” he said.
C40 suggests several local climate change preventions, such as using compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). The city’s carbon footprint can be reduced, and New Yorkers’ dollars saved, if people changed just five of their most-used lights to CFLs.
Also, for people who drive, it may be worth keeping the old car. Every car that is manufactured, even a hybrid, creates a large carbon footprint.
New York City will be releasing a report this week on its progress making buildings more energy efficient. It will be the largest study to date on energy use in urban buildings.
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