On 23 September 2014 world leaders will gather at the UN to discuss the need for action on climate change at an unprecedented summit. While our heads of state must take bold action on curtailing carbon emissions released at a national level, as individuals we must also take responsibility for our actions at a local level.
One important step we can take as individuals is to join the People’s Climate March on 21 September 2014 in New York City to demonstrate popular support for our elected leaders to take action on climate change. And then we must make sure that us and our neighbors take individual and local actions that, as a whole, set an example and help protect our climate.
It is easy for any one country, let alone any one city or any one citizen, to become overwhelmed by this global issue, but many of the sources and impacts of climate change are local. In my experience, meaningful change can be and often is implemented at the municipal level. We can act to reduce our contributions to global warming at an individual and local scale, and in so doing, encourage ambitious target setting by our national leaders.
From 2012–14, as the deputy commissioner for Sanitation, Recycling and Sustainability in the Bloomberg Administration, I managed a team that rebuilt and managed New York City’s recycling program. In this role, our team developed a plan to divert more than 30% of New York’s waste from landfills by 2017 and more than 70% by 2025.
Through these new programs, the NYC Sanitation Department will achieve enormous reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, the city’s new organics collection program will divert organic materials from landfills to anaerobic digesters. The digesters then convert organics into clean renewable energy and help save on the $80m annually spent to export NYC’s food waste to out of state landfills in Pennsylvania, Ohio and South Carolina.
Let’s take a moment here: Instead of spending tens of millions of dollars to send food waste to out of state landfills, we can use it locally to create renewable energy. That’s good economics. And it’s a great way to reduce GHG emissions.
Other cities and the private sector are also seeking to unlock the carbon and cost saving potential of recycling. After my term in the Bloomberg administration, I joined a number of sustainability professionals at major consumer goods companies in co-founding the Closed Loop Fund, which provides cities with the capital to invest in recycling infrastructure and ensures that valuable materials are recycled back into the supply chain. By linking the financial interest of companies that use recycled materials to the capital that municipalities need for recycling infrastructure, the Fund diverts material from landfills and saves cities money.
I believe there are parallels to the transformations taking place in the recycling market and what is starting to happen with the adoption of renewable energy. We have only begun to reap the savings the clean energy market will unlock for corporations and cities. And like recycling, the potential to scale clean energy starts locally and can extend globally.
Many cities and companies now recognise that intelligent environmental behavior is a driver of positive economic outcomes. Unfortunately, the progress being made at the city and the corporate level is not being matched nationally or even regionally in many cases. We need firm leadership that will support the conditions for local clean energy markets to thrive. We need national and regional governments to help scale these new markets. Most importantly, we need to move away from supporting antiquated policies that protect the use of fossil fuels. These policies are in direct competition with our future economic and social wellbeing.
National and regional authorities that assume a leadership role on climate change will find strong support in cities and communities, where their decisions will have a significant impact on economic growth and health.
The UN climate summit is a great forum for heads of state to demonstrate their ambition to provide leadership on climate change. And two days before the Summit will be the perfect opportunity for individuals to demand that leadership by marching with thousands of others, all representing their communities and cities, to demand climate action. This is the point at which leaders will be judged as either setting a positive direction for the future or as being stuck supporting antiquated and environmentally harmful policies. We must all do our part to ensure our elected officials take us down a path to a better future.
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