Mayors Conference to Focus on Climate Change

The New Mayor of Belltown by Katherine, via our Flickr pool.

The US Conference of Mayors will hold their fall leadership meeting this weekend in downtown Seattle, The Puget Sound Business Journal reports:

According to lame-duck Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who’s president of the mayors’ group, the mayors will discuss the recession and economic recovery with the government officials. The group will also release a “climate protection city profile” that Nickels said will outline specific actions that each mayor will take to make cities more energy efficient and meet the goals of the group’s “climate protection agreement,” which is “a pledge to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with Kyoto Protocol standards.”

Over 60 mayors are expected to attend including: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, and local Mayors Grant Degginger ( Bellevue), Dan Pike (Bellingham), Gary Haakenson (Edmonds), and Mary Verner (Spokane).

Mayor Nickels launched the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement back in 2005, and it has just reached 1,000 signatures. The form itself bears a striking resemblance to the mother’s day gift coupons we made as children that promised to take out the trash for a week (and that we rarely followed through on). But certainly any effort to combat climate change is better than none, and we hope Nickels' efforts will help to boost our reputation as a green city.

The Mayors Climate Protection Center website also has a fun map that tracks which mayors have signed the agreement. It appears Wyoming is a little slow to jump on the bandwagon.