Since the US doesn’t have a real federal gov., mayors step in for int’l climate talks

Groups of US city mayors and representatives from state governments announced a delegation of officials who will attend climate talks for the US today, as the lack of a real US federal government with any interest in solving problems for Americans has led to lower, subnational representatives having to step up and do their job for them.

The delegation was announced today by multiple subnational climate coalitions: America Is All In, the U.S. Climate Alliance, C40 Cities and Climate Mayors.

These groups all have different focuses and membership, but share the common thread that all of them consist of subnational US representatives who want to solve the problem of climate change. They include representatives from governments of all sizes – as small as, say, McCall, Idaho (population 3,686); to as large as California, the 4th largest economy in the world.

The groups announced a delegation that will attend several global climate events in the coming weeks, including the the UNFCCC June Climate Meetings in Bonn (June 16-26), London Climate Action Week (June 21-29), and a Paris Agreement 10-year anniversary event on June 23. Delegation members include:

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• Laura Tierney, Vice President of International Programs, Business Council for Sustainable Energy
• Mayor Kate Gallego, Climate Mayors Chair, C40 Steering Committee and Phoenix Mayor
• Secretary Yana Garcia, California Environmental Protection Agency
• Secretary Serena McIlwain, Maryland Department of the Environment
• Elizabeth Lien, Program Director for America Is All In
• Kate Wright, Executive Director, Climate Mayors
• Nathan Hultman, Director of the Center for Global Sustainability 

The delegation will work to showcase that, despite the backpedaling we see regarding US federal climate action, states and cities are ready to pick up the slack until US leadership returns.

Today’s move became necessary only due to the lack of a real US federal government that wants to work on solving the largest problem in human history.

Climate change is the biggest problem that humanity has ever caused for itself, and will take a concerted effort of people all over the globe to solve. Over the last century (and particularly over the last 30 years, where humanity emitted more than half of all-time global emissions), humans have collectively put significant effort into ignoring the environmental destruction we are causing, and so will need to reverse that damage with a global effort.

Currently, the atmosphere is at 430ppm CO2, while the safe historical level is around 350ppm. In order to get us back to a reasonable level, humanity needs to not only stop polluting, but also remove about a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. The more we pollute now, the more we’ll have to remove later, at much greater cost – so nothing is “too fast” as far as pollution reductions are concerned. Implementing drastic pollution reductions today will only save effort and misery for humanity in the long term.

This is a tall order, so cooperation from the world’s largest governments is necessary. To this end, the UN and other intergovernmental organizations host regular climate talks for countries to negotiate how we’re going to fix this problem in an equitable and efficient manner.

Nevermind that these talks often end up ineffective – with groups either making proclamations that countries aren’t making enough progress following, or those agreements getting watered down by fossil lobbying.

However, the country most responsible for climate change, the US, has currently abdicated its responsibility to clean up after itself.

Like the last time a former reality TV host squatted in the White House (after receiving 3 million fewer votes than his opponent), it’s expected that the US federal government won’t be engaging in much climate diplomacy during the next 4 years, which are crucial to solving this immediate problem. In fact, that stint is what led to the formation of some of today’s groups in the first place.

That same former reality TV host (now also a convicted felon who further attempted an insurrection to overthrow a legitimate election, thus disqualifying him from holding office per the US Constitution) unfortunately stumbled into the White House again, after receiving more votes than his opponent for the first time, despite that US law barring him from running in the first place.

It’s expected that his current coalition of reality TV characters and other incompetents cosplaying as a federal government will once again purposefully fail to engage in effective diplomacy to solve the biggest problem humanity has ever faced. In fact, they’re actually trying to make the problem worse by polluting your air, raising your costs, sending your money to elites, and ensuring US manufacturing will lose competitiveness and surrender to China.

So, in their absence, states and mayors are having to step up.

Besides, in many parts of the world, climate action has been driven by cities. For example, several European cities have instituted low-emissions zones or congestion charges to reduce car dependency and pollution in the places most populated by people. These moves have worked to reduce pollution, and the US has seen success with a similar idea in NYC too.

However, despite that the majority of the world’s population now lives in cities, the problem of climate change is global and doesn’t just affect people where population density is the highest, but everywhere around the globe. For this reason, we need cooperation at the highest level – and a competent delegation from the federal government of the world’s largest historical emitter would be a nice thing to have, instead of relying on the mayor of the aforementioned McCall, Idaho to shoulder the burden (thank you, Mr. Giles, for your service).

Another thing the US government might destroy is the rooftop solar credit. That means you could have only until the end of this year to install rooftop solar on your home, before republicans raise the cost of doing so by an average of ~$10,000. So if you want to go solar, get started now, because these things take time and the system needs to be active before you file for the credit.

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