Meeting alongside energy ministers from 17 nations in San Francisco this week, a group of West Coast governors, mayors, and other subnational officials signed the Pacific North America Climate Leadership Agreement, an update to a similar pledge signed in 2013. “The Action Plan of 2016 has a stronger emphasis than in the past on issues including ocean acidification; the integration of clean energy into the power grid; support for efforts by the insurance industry and regulatory system to highlight the economic costs of climate change; and so-called “super pollutants” (also known as short-lived climate pollutants),” a press release from the group says.
By signing the document, the city and state leaders pledge to: implement approaches to large building energy benchmarking and disclosure; develop and implement approaches that encourage consumer adoption of Zero Emission Vehicles; create a comprehensive Pacific Coast vehicle charging network; accelerate deployment of distributed and community-scale renewable energy and work collaboratively on infrastructure and integration into the grid; lower the carbon intensity of heating fuels in residential and commercial buildings; and advance organic waste prevention and recovery initiatives to reduce carbon emissions from the food waste stream and return carbon to the soil through composting.
The agreement was signed by the governors of California, Oregon and Washington, the environment minister of British Columbia, and the mayors of Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Oakland, and Vancouver. “We’re proud of our region’s clean economy, which already employs more than half a million workers. We see these agreements as a pathway towards a clean energy economy and the jobs of the future.” Gov. Jay Inslee (D) of Washington said in the release.
