Bloomberg: Waiting on climate action 'isn't good enough'

Dive Brief:

In a letter accompanying Bloomberg Philanthropies' annual report, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged more action against climate change, writing that "proposing ideas for 2021 isn't good enough."
Bloomberg Philanthropies has supported climate change initiatives, including the recently-announced $500 million campaign that seeks to shut down every coal plant and wean the country off natural gas. The group's American Cities Climate Challenge has also supported 25 cities in projects estimated to cut 40 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
Bloomberg's letter dovetails with the Beyond Carbon campaign, which will be the largest coordinated action on climate change, including advocacy work, support for climate-friendly candidates and funding for grassroots organizations.

Dive Insight:

Bloomberg’s letter is a signal to local, state and business leaders that they need to be the main actors on climate change in the absence of federal leadership under the Trump administration.

Even as Democratic presidential candidates have been rolling out aggressive action plans, Bloomberg says those will be too late. "With cities and states leading the way," he wrote, "we will be better off in two years than we are today."

America's Pledge, the group Bloomberg founded with former California Gov. Jerry Brown, has been coordinating and tallying the impact of local and state climate action, in order to keep up the country's pledge to the U.N. Paris climate accord.

Many cities have taken up the call — nearly 300 cities and counties have signed the "We Are Still In" pledge to uphold the goals of the Paris agreement, and dozens have pushed goals to become carbon neutral or use 100% clean energy in the coming decades.

Still, there's concern that even those aggressive timelines may not be enough to fight off the worst effects of climate change.

At a media briefing hosted by the World Resources Institute (WRI) this spring, some expressed concern that sped-up timelines could strain city budgets; Ian LaHiff, energy project manager for Orlando, FL said "to maintain that high level of audience experience as well as the high quality of life for people that are moving to Orlando and maybe trying to escape a worse situation, it’s difficult to make the strategic investments in all those different areas."