Hailing it the greatest economic opportunity since the industrial military complex of World War Two, Bill Clinton praised the financial gains to be found in environmental protection at the Mayors’ Climate Protection Summit in Seattle on Thursday. The summit is comprised of participating mayors to the Climate Protection Agreement – an accord wherein mayors must keep their cities in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol targets. In order to do so, the mayors must enact expensive changes to their cities’ structures, such as improving public transportation, restoring urban forests, or renovating older buildings to increase energy efficiency.
Enter the Clinton Climate Initiative – the environmental arm of the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Clinton spoke to some 100 mayors of U.S. towns and cities on Thursday to discuss his purchasing consortium – a partnership between his foundation, municipal governments, banks and energy companies. The consortium brings together 25 manufacturers of energy-efficient or green products to provide deep discounts to municipalities and private building owners. These companies include those in waste management, transportation, lighting and construction. During his speech, Clinton pledged to make affordable green products and services accessible to the mayors of all 1,100 total participating cities.
Such pledged increases in demand will necessarily expand production, creating jobs and new revenue sources.
Clinton predicates his dedication to greening cities on a startling statistic: large cities take up 2% of total landmass on earth, but contribute 75% of greenhouse gas emissions. 40% of all emissions come from buildings.
Towards that end, Clinton also has a pilot program in 16 of the world’s largest cities to retrofit all buildings with the latest energy-saving technology.
While Clinton’s impetus for fighting climate change is primarily humanitarian (his is a foundation – not a for-profit business), he sees economic opportunity as the motivating factor for fighting climate change. As he said in an announcement of the building-retrofit program in May: “The businesses, banks and cities partnering with my foundation are addressing the issue of global warming because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s good for their bottom line.”
