Can Cities Save The Planet?

Cities can pick up nations’ slack on combating climate change

Nick Stockton, December 18, 2016 (Grist)

“…[Deadline2020 is a 100-plus-page study detailing how the C40 Cities’ 90 affiliated cities can, and are, taking rapid, impactful actions to keep the Earth from warming to the point of catastrophe. It] is based on goals set out in the Paris Agreement [signed by 117] countries to keep the average global temperature from rising to 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels…[and] stay as close to 1.5 degrees C as possible…[T]he next four years are critical…If the C40 cities want to meet that 1.5 degrees C goal, its members need to collectively cut the average emissions of city-dwelling folks from 5.1 tons to 2.1 per person by 2020…If they succeed, the cities of C40 will have contributed 40 percent of the reductions necessary to meet the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. Come hell or high water, their home nations are largely responsible for the other 60 percent…Cities can’t save the Paris Agreement, or the world, on their own. But they can do a lot. And they can do it a lot faster, and a lot more reliably, than nations…Those actions aren’t always sexy, but they are tangible…” click here for more

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