On December 10 and 11, Mayor Murray and four other West Coast Mayors (from the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Eugene) met for a two-day summit to discuss pressing issues facing each of their cities: homelessness, housing, and climate action.
At the conclusion of the summit, the Mayors announced a pledge to work together to accelerate bold climate action, renewing commitments to reduce carbon emissions in each of their cities by at least 80 percent by 2050.
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti have committed to work together and individually to meet the challenge of climate change, and create communities that are safe, healthy and prosperous for all.
“We are creating a ‘green wall’ along the West Coast. Our cities are committed to growing with sustainable values, such as Portland’s recent resolution opposing all new fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Portland Mayor Charlie Hales. “When we act in collaboration, cities have an outsized impact. The West Coast will help move the meter on climate change.”
Following discussions during the summit, mayors identified areas where they could collaborate on climate action, such as completing the West Coast Electric Vehicle highway.
“Electric Vehicles are not only key to lowering fuel costs and maintenance costs in our cities, but they are critical to helping us reach the aggressive goals we’ve laid out for reducing harmful emissions in our communities,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “In Los Angeles, we have committed to adding 160 battery EV vehicles to our city fleet, and reaching our goal of 1000 publicly available EV chargers by 2017. But as a group of elected leaders committed to the climate action, we can do more. That is why as West Coast Mayors, we have agreed to launch an electric vehicle consortium that will look into leveraging our purchasing power to get vehicle manufacturers, to produce the light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles we need. This is the power of mayors working together.”
The mayors also identified climate goals for their own cities, such as making their own municipal operations cleaner and more efficient by reducing water and energy use in City buildings; moving toward increased solar and renewable energy to power City operations; and converting City fleets to electric vehicles.
“Cities are critical when it comes to climate action, and San Francisco has successfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions even while our economy and our population have been growing strongly. But California’s severe drought is a reminder that the effects of climate change are being felt sooner by our residents and with greater impact than expected,” said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. “We are showing that local action can combat climate change. San Francisco is the first large city to phase out petroleum diesel in its entire municipal fleet and replace it with renewable diesel, an estimated 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. With our aggressive climate action strategy, San Francisco will see zero waste sent to the landfills, 50 percent of all trips rely on non-auto transport and 100 percent of energy from renewables. We are committed to real solutions to climate change and pushing a climate action agenda that helps San Francisco reach our ambitious goals for a more sustainable future.”
As West Coast mayors and through organizations such as Mayors’ National Climate Action Agenda, Compact of Mayors, C40 Cities, and other groups of local leaders, they will support expanded federal funding for better transit, rail and low-carbon transportation systems that prioritize equitable outcomes.
“Climate change is much more than an economic or environmental challenge. Fundamentally, it is an issue of social justice,” said Seattle Mayor Ed Murray. “Around the world, populations that have contributed the least to this problem will unfairly bear the greatest burden. And in our communities, the benefits of our progressive environmental policies must be shared by all — parks and open space, clean air and water, and access to healthy foods. If we are leaving people behind, we are not succeeding.”
West Coast mayors also committed to building partnerships with the private sector and community-based organization in order to accelerate the spread of low-carbon solutions across industries, and build capacity to deliver benefits on a neighborhood scale.
“We’ve strengthened our commitment by taking the bold step of putting our goals directly in city code,” said Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy. “We must let our communities know where we need to go and how we can get there together. It’s going to take all of us working as partners in new and innovative ways. Expanded collaboration with other local institutions like the university, the utility and the transit agency is essential. We have made a great start engaging with the community and the private sector in creative new business models and public/private partnerships and we need to take this further. If we draw on all of our community assets and collective wisdom, can we meet this challenge.”