As world leaders gathered in Copenhagen, Our Fair City held its own climate summit inviting townspeople to gather together and brainstorm ideas on how to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions.
On December 12, 100 Cantabrigians from a high school student to a climate expert spent the day at City Hall developing proposals that included eliminating all street parking by 2020 and incorporating landscaped or reflective roofs into building codes.
The ideas seemed rather ambitious, but if the city plans to start meeting its greenhouse gas reduction goals it will likely need to get creative. In 2002 city officials launched a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. Earlier this year, however, they announced that despite their best efforts emissions have not only not decreased, but, have continued to grow.
City officials will review recommendations from the recent summit and will announce how they plan to proceed on January 23.
An excellent way to support the work of the climate congress is to submit climate solution ideas to the public wiki site: http://climateenergencycongress.wikispaces.com/Ideas+for+reducing+C02
These ideas will be collected for review at the next Climate Congress to be held on January 23rd.
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