The Climate Action Summit on March 8th drew over 150 people with its promise to showcase statewide actions to address global warming. Speakers from Kansas City, Columbia and local municipalities such as Clayton, and St. Louis City highlighted their noteworthy efforts to combat global warming. The sponsors of the event included the Sierra Club, Ethical Society, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, and Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice.

In February of 2005, Mayor Greg Nickels of Seattle led the effort of U.S. mayors to sign the Kyoto agreement. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has endorsed this agreement and set up its Climate Protection Center. This is a deliberate campaign to show that Americans can lead the world to decrease CO2 emissions in our country and around the world despite inaction at the federal level. As of March 13th, there are 811 mayors across the U.S. who signed the U. S. MCPA. They represent over 78,222,064 citizens. There are at least 9 mayors in the St. Louis area who have signed the agreement to reduce city government CO2 emissions and then reduce community CO2 levels from industry, businesses, and individuals. Several other cities in the St. Louis area have committees working on ways their city governments can reduce CO2 emissions and energy use which will save them money as well.

Mayors across the country report that individual changes such as more walking less driving, more trees less pavement, and more local food less processing will translates into healthier lifestyles as well as cleaner city air and water. But for big reductions a GHG emissions inventory must be done so that realistic targets can be set. A detailed Climate Action Plan is necessary which will include a timeline such as Kansas City has written for city operations to reduce CO2 emissions 30% below 2000 level by 2020. The emissions inventory will be repeated to see if the actions work.