FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, New York
May 16, 2007

DAY TWO OF C40 LARGE CITIES CLIMATE SUMMIT BRINGS BROAD CALLS FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE, INNOVATIVE PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS & BOLD INITIATIVES TO PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

World leaders emphasize humanity’s shared destiny and responsibility for combating global warming

From the opening plenary session at which James Murdoch, CEO of BskyB, advocated that corporate leaders implement decisive measures to fight global warming—even in the face of shareholder uncertainty—to an afternoon plenary gathering at which Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles, declared that Los Angeles was en route to become the cleanest, greenest large city in the United States—the second day of the C40 Climate Summit was marked by calls to courage, along with optimism that innovation and dedication could sharply reduce humanity’s carbon footprint in our lifetimes. The day’s feature panels included discussions on urban transit alternatives, adopting renewable energy systems, and transforming waste into energy.

At the panel on urban transit alternatives, Göran Carstedt, Senior Director of the Large Cities Initiative, Clinton Climate Initiative, discussed the vital need for and efficacy of solutions that addressed multiple facets of the climate change problem simultaneously. Calling for a “systems approach,” Carstedt described the economic and environmental benefits that derive from comprehensive strategies to solve pollution problems. He also noted that long-term solutions involved a “willingness on the governmental level” to partner with industry and science as never before.

Representatives of various governments in the panel audience offered examples of how this process could work, such as the case of a successful “oil from seeds” program being implemented in Cairo, Egypt in which seeds of easily grown plans are being refined to manufacture an effective biofuel, while simultaneously recycling wastewater to hydrate the desert sites at which the plants are grown—thus, also, replanting the desert.

Ken Fisher, Senior VP of Strategy & Portfolio, Shell International Petroleum, discussed the great promise of second-generation biofuels, such as cellulose to ethanol processes. Acknowledging that over the next ten years these energy sources had to “be proven and then taken up to scale,” he expressed confidence that within the decade second-generation biofuels would be produced in much larger volumes, and with far greater efficiency than was ever possible in the past.

Jan Hartke, Consultant to the Clinton Climate Initiative, opened the panel on energy by citing John F. Kennedy’s famous statement that, “We all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.” Underscoring our obligation to our children and future generations, Hartke focused on the inescapability of the fact that solutions to the problems of climate change would draw on people from all over the world and all walks of life. The wide-ranging, multidisciplinary dialogue on which the C40 Summit is based must thus be taken as a global model, he suggested.

Klaus Kleinfeld, President & CEO of Siemens AG, followed Hartke’s remarks with a description of the inroads in the battle against global warming that technological innovations have made in the recent past, and are increasingly making today. Pointing out that 2007 marks “the first year in human history that more people live in cities than outside of cities,” he discussed the enormous obligations and opportunities that come with this demographic transformation. Cities are at once, “the concentration points” from which most emissions originate, and sites at which the “governance structure enables changes to be made more easily than they would be in a dispersed environment.”

Questioning the feasibility of widespread behavioral change, but arguing that major changes in our standard of living are not in fact necessary to save the earth, Kleinfeld talked about three fields in which positive steps can be taken immediately with immense positive environmental implications. By changing our engines of energy production to the cutting-edge models already on the market (such as massive, hyper-efficient new gas turbines), by shifting to renewable energy sources (such as wind), and by taking relatively simple steps toward energy conservation (such as replacing old car engines with new motors that conserve energy), we can begin today to reverse the damage done to our environment, Kleinfeld said.

Robert B. Catell, Chairman & CEO of KeySpan, argued for a reinvigorated dedication to partnerships and collaborations between energy companies and municipalities as a means of accelerating the introduction of new technologies and green policies that could lead to major reductions in carbon emissions in the near future.

Discussions on landfill and related issues in the panel on waste similarly focused on the need for integrated strategies that address the “big picture” end-product of current waste policies—even when those policies are, like landfill recycling, environmentally friendly ones. In discussions between Mark Watts, Chief Climate Change Advisor to the Mayor of London, Anthony Pratt, Chairman, Pratt Industries and audience members, the enormous volume of recycling “leftovers” from landfills was invoked as an argument for the conversion of waste to energy on a scale that would ultimately bring about an end to landfill usage. In the meantime, it was pointed out, there already exist ways of financing methane capture which even struggling cities can afford. One valuable initiative by developed countries would comprise the collecting and cataloguing of these financing strategies on behalf of emerging nations.

At his address to the plenary lunch on “Risks and Economics of Climate Change,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa outlined his vision for the “Green LA Action Plan,” which would enable Los Angeles to help lead the nation in the fight against global warming. Setting a goal of reducing the city’s carbon emissions 35% below 1990 levels by 2030—a benchmark five times beyond that set by the Kyoto Convention—Mayor Villaraigosa sketched a bold program which would include sweeping infrastructure change. Citing many initiatives which are already being implemented, he described Los Angeles’s commitment to switching its municipal power company further away from coal toward clean energy forms, reducing water consumption by an additional 20% each year, increasing the level of trash recycling from the 62% figure it’s at today to 70% by 2010, providing financial incentives to developers who agree to build green along with a dramatic expansion in the creation of new parks over the next five years. “By leading the way in environmental change,” Mayor Villaraigosa declared, Los Angeles had also positioned itself on “the leading edge of economic change,” revitalizing neglected neighborhoods by enlisting the citizenry in the battle for environmental sustainability.

Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, the Mayor of Mexico City joined Klaus Wowereit, the Mayor of Berlin and a representative from JP Morgan & Chase & Co. discussed how “Cities can thrive in a Low Carbon Economy.”  Steve Howard, the CEO of the Climate Group was the moderator of the exchange. 

At almost every juncture, in almost every panel and plenary discussion, a common theme was reiterated: We must think big, share information, act fearlessly, and commit ourselves unstintingly to combating global warming for the sake of the future. If we take command of the situation now, with all the boldness and creativity it merits, there’s still time to save the earth—and all that’s worth saving in our current way of life.

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