World Environment Day ends with 'greener' city pacts, acts

Dozens of mayors and delegates from around the world walk along Crissy Field with the Golden Gate Bridge seen in the background, after arriving to San Francisco for the United Nations World Environment Day Conference, Friday, June 3, 2005. At the five-day conference that ends Sunday, the mayors are trading ideas on how to combat air pollution, water contamination, urban sprawl and other environmental problems that confront cities worldwide. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

World Environment Day was yesterday (apparently) and there was a major conference of big city mayors from around the world in San Francisco. This article from Reuters discusses the final conference accords, which are online here.

Urban Environmental Accords

Energy
Action 1 Adopt and implement a policy to increase the use of renewable energy to meet ten percent of the city’s peak electric load within seven years.
Action 2 Adopt and implement a policy to reduce the city’s peak electric load by ten percent within seven years through energy efficiency, shifting the timing of energy demands, and conservation measures.
Action 3 Adopt a city-wide greenhouse gas reduction plan that reduces the jurisdiction’s emissions by twenty-five percent by 2030, and which includes a system for accounting and auditing greenhouse gas emissions.

Waste Reduction
Action 4 Establish a policy to achieve zero waste to landfills and incinerators by 2040.
Action 5 Adopt a citywide law that reduces the use of a disposable, toxic, or non-renewable product category by at least fifty percent in seven years.
Action 6 Implement "user-friendly" recycling and composting programs, with the goal of reducing by twenty percent per capita solid waste disposal to landfill and incineration in seven years.

Urban Design
Action 7 Adopt a policy that mandates a green building rating system standard that applies to all new municipal buildings.
Action 8 Adopt urban planning principles and practices that advance higher density, mixed use, walkable, bikeable and disabled-accessible neighborhoods which coordinate land use and transportation with open space systems for recreation and ecological reconstruction.
Action 9 Adopt a policy or implement a program that creates environmentally beneficial jobs in slums and/or low-income neighborhoods.

Urban Nature
Action 10 Ensure that there is an accessible public park or recreational open space within half-a-kilometer of every city resident by 2015.
Action 11 Conduct an inventory of existing canopy coverage in your city; and, then establish a goal based on ecological and community considerations to plant and maintain canopy coverage in not less than fifty percent of all available sidewalk planting sites.
Action 12 Pass legislation that protects critical habitat corridors and other key habitat characteristics (e.g. water features, food-bearing plants, shelter for wildlife, use of native species, etc.) from unsustainable development.

Transportation
Action 13 Develop and implement a policy which expands affordable public transportation coverage to within half-a-kilometer of all city residents in ten years.
Action 14 Pass a law or implement a program that eliminates leaded gasoline (where it is still used); phases down sulfur levels in diesel and gasoline fuels, concurrent with using advanced emission controls on all buses, taxis, and public fleets to reduce particulate matter and smog-forming emissions from those fleets by fifty percent in seven years.
Action 15 Implement a policy to reduce the percentage of commute trips by single occupancy vehicles by ten percent in seven years.

Environmental Health
Action 16 Every year, identify one product, chemical, or compound that is used within the city that represents the greatest risk to human health and adopt a law and provide incentives to reduce or eliminate its use by the municipal government.

Action 17 Promote the public health and environmental benefits of supporting locally-grown organic foods. Ensure that twenty percent of all city facilities (including schools) serve locally-grown and organic food within seven years.
Action 18 Establish an Air Quality Index (AQI) to measure the level of air pollution and set the goal of reducing by ten percent in seven years the number of days categorized in the AQI range as "unhealthy" or "hazardous."

Water
Action 19 Develop policies to increase adequate access to safe drinking water, aiming at access for all by 2015. For cities with potable water consumption greater than 100 liters per capita per day, adopt and implement policies to reduce consumption by ten percent by 2015.
Action 20 Protect the ecological integrity of the city’s primary drinking water sources (i.e., aquifers, rivers, lakes, wetlands and associated ecosystems).
Action 21 Adopt municipal wastewater management guidelines and reduce the volume of untreated wastewater discharges by 10 percent in seven years through the expanded use of recycled water and the implementation of a sustainable urban watershed planning process that includes participants of all affected communities and is based on sound economic, social, and environmental principles.

Vision and Implementation
THE 21 ACTIONS that comprise the Urban Environmental Accords are organized by urban environmental themes. They are proven first steps toward environmental sustainability. However, to achieve long-term sustainability, cities will have to progressively improve performance in all thematic areas.

Implementing the Urban Environmental Accords will require an open, transparent, and participatory dialogue between government, community groups, businesses, academic institutions, and other key partners. Accords implementation will benefit where decisions are made on the basis of a careful assessment of available alternatives using the best available science.

The call to action set forth in the Accords will most often result in cost savings as a result of diminished resource consumption and improvements in the health and general well-being of city residents. Implementation of the Accords can leverage each city's purchasing power to promote and even require responsible environmental, labor and human rights practices from vendors.

Between now and the World Environment Day 2012, cities shall work to implement as many of the 21 Actions as possible. The ability of cities to enact local environmental laws and policies differs greatly. However, the success of the Accords will ultimately be judged on the basis of actions taken. Therefore, the Accords can be implemented though programs and activities even where cities lack the requisite legislative authority to adopt laws.

The goal is for cities to pick three actions to adopt each year. In order to recognize the progress of cities to implement the Accords, a City Green Star Program shall be created. At the end of the seven years a city that has implemented:
19 to 21 Actions -- shall be recognized as a 4-star City
15 to 18 Actions -- shall be recognized as a 3-star City
12 to 17 Actions -- shall be recognized as a 2-star City
8 to 11 Actions -- shall be recognized as a 1-star City
________
Now I don't think that Mayor Williams attended this meeting. I wish he had. Maybe it'd give a strong mission and set of objectives to the proposed new DC Government Agency on environmental issues (see "Williams Calls for Environmental Agency: Ineffectual Response to Lead in Drinking Water Highlighted Need for Separate Department, Officials Say" from the Washington Post).