New York – To the long list of evils blamed on global warming – hurricanes, heat waves, melting ice caps – tack on the smaller interior of Steve Benesoczky’s cab. Inside, passengers can feel the squeeze of climate change in their knees.
“Of course it’s less comfortable. Look, there’s less leg room,” said Benesoczky, 55, as he pointed to the back of his hybrid Ford Escape.
The company Benesoczky works for has started complying with a directive ordering New York’s entire fleet of 13,000 yellow cabs to go green over the next five years – part of an effort by the city to cut carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030.
“Some people are complaining – especially the tall ones – but most are saying, ‘Finally, you’re doing something for the environment,”‘ Benesoczky said. “Look, people will make a little sacrifice if they have to. They already are.”
New York is among U.S. cities from Boston to Portland, Ore., that are racing ahead of the federal government in setting carbon emission targets and developing concrete strategies to deal with climate change, altering the fabric of life for millions of urban dwellers.
It is a direct consequence, municipal officials and analysts say, of the growing perception inside city halls that the Bush administration has largely ignored an issue that has reached a tipping point.
A nationwide poll in April showed a third of Americans call global warming the single-largest environmental problem – double the number a year ago, according to a Washington Post- ABC News-Stanford University survey. Though the administration agreed last week to “seriously consider” a European proposal to slash emissions 50 percent by 2050, the United States rebuffed efforts to make the cuts mandatory.
“You’ve got people in Europe saying that America is doing nothing on global warming, but that’s not true,” said Daniel Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. “You are seeing real action. But it’s happening in a local way.”
What started in 2005 with the frustrations of one mayor – Seattle’s Greg Nickels – over the Bush administration’s resistance to the Kyoto Protocol has since grown to become a nationwide movement. Nickels’ “U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement” includes 522 mayors, including Denver’s and Boulder’s, representing 65 million Americans who have pledged to meet the Kyoto standard of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Officials are still attempting to assess the overall effect of the combined effort of local governments. But they say those measures – along with mild weather and other factors – significantly contributed to the 1.3 percent drop in U.S. fossil-fuel-related emissions.
In Boulder, the City Council in November passed what environmentalists call the nation’s first “carbon tax.” Homeowners face average increases of $16 and businesses $48 annually on electricity bills to cover a “climate action plan” to make the city more energy-efficient and fund a switch to alternative fuels.
Chicago is experimenting with waterless urinals and has planted thousands of trees to cool down patches of heavy asphalt that absorb heat.
In Portland, the water that flows through the drinking system is being used to generate hydroelectricity.
