COPENHAGEN — The Obama administration should have sent federal stimulus money not to the U.S. states, but to cities, where “most of the environmental damage is done and most of the chances for improvement are,” New York Mayor Mich ael Bloom berg said Tuesday.
Bloomberg joined about 80 other local leaders from around the world at a “summit” that took place alongside the United Nations climate conference.
The mayors and other officials were from rich capitals such as London and Tokyo and impoverished cities such as Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. They were taking part in the five-day session to compare notes on how cities can help reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases, and save money on energy and other costs.
City leaders say they want to show the way but can’t do it alone.
“While nations talk, cities act. Cities are delivering real cuts in greenhouse gases,” Toronto Mayor Steve Miller said. “We have already cut 1 million tons of CO2 per year. To do more, we need our national governments to act.”
Miller, Bloomberg, Copenhagen’s Ritt Bjerregaard and dozens of the other mayors Tuesday signed a joint declaration urging the leaders “to embrace this chance and seal an ambitious and empowering deal in Copenhagen.”
Bloomberg said some of the $787 billion federal stimulus package, to create jobs in the midst of a U.S. recession, became a “great waste of money” when it was funneled to the states for projects.
“The dumbest way to distribute the money is to send it to the states, because they have to spread it around the states for political reasons,” often to be spent on useless projects, he said.
“I’ve said this to the president and to every member of Congress I can buttonhole,” Bloomberg added. “You really have to send the money where the problem is.”
Cities and towns consume two-thirds of the world’s total primary energy and produce more than 70 percent of its energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency reports. That will grow to 76 percent by 2030, the agency says.
