City of Seattle Mike McGinn, Mayor

Nickels Joins World Mayors in Fight Against Global Warming
192 U.S. cities have signed mayor’s climate agreement

SEATTLE - Mayor Greg Nickels joined a select group of municipal leaders from around the world today in Montreal in an effort to put cities at the forefront of the battle against global warming.

Nickels is the only mayor from the United States to attend the first meeting the World Mayors Council on Climate Change, whose honorary chair is the mayor of Kyoto, Japan. The group is gathering in Montreal this week amid the 181-nation talks that will set the stage for the second phase of the Kyoto Protocols to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The U.S. leads the world in greenhouse gas pollution when we should to be leading it toward a solution,” Nickels said. “That is why it is so important for cities like Seattle to step up and provide the leadership that is lacking in Washington D.C.”

Nickels arrived in Montreal Sunday amid growing momentum for his effort to recruit mayors from around the United States to join Seattle in pledging to meet or beat Kyoto’s emissions cutting goals. To date, 192 mayors representing more than 40 million people have joined the mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement.

The numbers so far have blown away the mayor’s original goal of signing up 141 cities - the same number of countries that initially adopted the landmark Kyoto treaty. Nickels launched his Climate Protection Agreement in February to send a strong message that cities around the country were prepared to fight global warming even if the federal government was not.

Canada’s leading newspaper, The Globe & Mail, wrote on Saturday that Nickels has “become a national folk hero, in the quintessentially American way of coming up with the right idea at the right time.”

Rolling Stone magazine recently named Nickels one of 25 “Warriors & Heroes” on climate change. Business Week magazine listed the mayor among the top 20 “Individuals who stand out for their efforts to cut gases that cause global warming.”

Last week, CALSTART, North America’s leading advanced transportation technologies consortium, gave Nickels its coveted Blue Sky Innovation Award. The mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement has been featured in hundreds of newspaper, radio and television stories across North America and Europe.

In Montreal, the mayor is also taking part in the Fourth Municipal Leaders Summit on Climate Change. Nickels will join other mayors in presenting the summit’s findings to the full international conference on Thursday.

Up to 10,000 United Nations delegates are meeting in Montreal, Canada this week to discuss commitments to further cut greenhouse gasses after the goals of Kyoto are met in 2012. A new agreement could take several years to conclude.

City government in Seattle has reduced its emissions by about 60 percent in recent years. Last month, Seattle City Light became the first major electrical utility in the country to produce zero net greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to a program that emphasizes conservation and renewable energy.

In February, as part of the Climate Protection Agreement, the mayor’s Green Ribbon Commission is scheduled to release its recommendations for how government, businesses and private citizens can reduce greenhouse gasses citywide.

Visit the mayor’s web site at www.seattle.gov/mayor. Get the mayor’s inside view on initiatives to promote transportation, public safety, economic opportunity and healthy communities by signing up for The Nickels Newsletter at www.seattle.gov/mayor/newsletter_signup.htm

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Office of the Mayor

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