New York mayor says US already leading climate change fight

Yahoo News 14 Dec 07;

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed Friday that local US leaders would spearhead the fight against climate change despite President George W. Bush's hardline stance in global talks.

Bloomberg, visiting a deadlocked UN conference in Bali on global warming, signed a pledge with London's Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron that their cities would slash carbon emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels.

The mayor has already launched a plan to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030, including by making New York taxis eco-friendly within five years and improving energy efficiency of buildings, power plants and mass transit.

"I don't think any other city is doing as much as we're doing -- perhaps London, perhaps Chicago," or Berlin, Bloomberg said.

"If you look at history, America sometimes having to be cajoled and nudged a little bit after sitting around too long in retrospect, but America has always done what's right," he said.

"At the local level, where it really matters, changes are being made and I think we'll find, when we write the history of this sometime in the future, when we look back, America will have done its part," he said.

"If it were up to me, I think we would have done more, quicker," added Bloomberg, who has advocated mandatory emissions cuts and a carbon tax.

The United States is the only major industrial nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates cuts in emission, with Bush arguing it is too costly for the economy.

The US delegation in Bali is clashing with the European Union and developing nations, which want a mention of 25-40 percent cuts in carbon emissions by 2020 as an ambition for negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol's successor.

Nobel laureate Al Gore on Thursday urged the conference to take strong action with or without the United States, predicting change once Bush leaves office in January 2009.

Bloomberg, 65, a billionaire who has stirred speculation of an independent presidential run, dismissed a reporter's question on whether he would be Gore's running mate if the former vice president again sought the White House.

"I'm not a candidate and I'm too old to work for someone else," he deadpanned.