100 years of Stravinsky's Rites about to be celebrated including my younger daughter

A new take on the Royals

A green wall inside a cafe in Jakarta - surprise!

Auckland waste: the organic solution

The view from my study on a cold winter day

Keeping the momentum

An issue for those local governments that led the climate change debate over the past decade or so is: how do we keep the momentum up? Toronto is proving their success by measuring reductions - can those cities in Australia that have done so much over recent years do the same? And this is a recent short overview from a wonderful USA leader, the City of Berkeley:

In its efforts to secure the future of its community, the city of Berkeley has decided to effectively combat the present threats triggered by climate change. In 2006, recognizing the costs to society, the voters of Berkeley demanded a critical change by endorsing the “Berkeley Measure G.” The measure proposed reducing the community’s greenhouse gas emissions.  To achieve this goal, the government led by then-mayor Tom Bates started a local climate change campaign that resulted in the 2009 Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan. By creating value in sustainability and the future; Mayor Bates was able to engage the population into moving forward progressively.
Tom Bates was a “Greenie” before pushing for the Climate Action Plan. He was already recycling his garbage and composting the organic disposables from his own house inside his garage, taking public transportation and walking to his meetings. In 2009, he was able to scale the reach of his actions to a bigger level by taking the lead on the development of the Berkeley City Climate Action Plan.
To move this idea forward, local government established an ambitious goal of reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent by 2020. The project consisted of a sequence of behavioral change measures distributed over five different important areas:

• Sustainable transportation and land use

• Building energy use

• Waste reduction and recycling

• Community outreach

• Adaptation and resilience

To monitor the progress and ensure the results were achievable, the key performance indicators (KPIs) and impact measures were carefully planned and designed to involve all the important stakeholders, from city residents to local companies, during the process. Every opinion and thought was seriously considered.
To date, Berkeley has already achieved outstanding results such as decreasing commercial electricity usage by seven percent, and reducing solid waste disposal by 43 percent, which equals approximately 48,000 tons. Unfortunately, like every long-term plan that quickly achieves success in its initial stage, the biggest concern the city faces now is how to move forward and keep the same high level of achievement.
Ever since its implementation, enthusiastic citizen engagement has been credited as a crucial part of the plan and the determining factor for achieving success as well as a solid functional and sustainable financing system. Some strategic events were developed not only to attract the contribution of locals but also to measure the efficiency of the project as a whole. The city used monetary reward systems, especially in the area of waste reduction and recycling, to stimulate companies, local businesses owners and residents to adopt new habits when disposing their garbage. In the first year of the project, a “Cash for Trash” contest granted up to $2,000 dollars to citizens that demonstrated strong recycling policies and local businesses would get up to 30 percent off the fee of standard garbage collection.

I don't think we need to worry about "political fragmentation" too much

Given the debate now underway in NSW (let alone almost over in WA) on reducing the number of local governments, it is startling to see the picture in the USA. Richard Florida - always insightful on such matters - offers an interesting set of numbers:

"Urban planners and good government types have long been concerned with what they see as the growth and proliferation of local agencies across counties and metro areas. They even coined a word for it — "political fragmentation" — which they argue generates duplication and inefficiency in the delivery of local services. The ultimate consequences include higher tax burdens, increased fiscal stress on local governments, and reduced levels of economic growth.

Some advocate consolidating government agencies across cities, counties, and metro areas — a phenomenon sometimes referred to as "metropolitan government." Metro government has already been instituted in a number of metro areas including Indianapolis, Nashville, Kansas City, Louisville, and Jacksonville. Calls for government consolidation have only risen in light of the increasing budget woes and fiscal stress that have followed the economic crisis.

But what areas of the country suffer from the highest levels of governmental fragmentation?

The map above by Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute charts the picture, based on detailed figures from the  2012 Census of Governments on the number of local governments by state.

There is a broad belt of states with relatively large numbers of local governments stretching from the Great Lakes states (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) through the Plains (North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska) through Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado down to Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The number of local governments tracks population to some extent. Illinois has the largest number of local governments, 6,968. Pennsylvania is next (4,905), followed by Texas (4,856), and California (4,530). But Kansas and Missouri, much smaller states, are next with 3,806 and 3,752 respectively."

Toronto's persistence prevails....

Toronto played a key role in providing inspiration for many cities over the last twenty years. It is great to hear that this was based on real substance, with 15% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2012:

In 2007, Toronto adopted Canada's Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas emission reduction targets as its own. The city would strive to reach a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 1990 levels by 2012. A recent progress report from city staff shows that the city met the target with flying colours.

In fact, Toronto is already halfway to the 2020 target of 30% below 1990 levels.

Toronto’s greenhouse gas emissions have dropped 15% from 1990 levels and per capita emissions have fallen by 26%. Meanwhile, the city has grown and expanded, demonstrating that greenhouse gas emissions can shrink while a city grows.

Toronto’s success so far has largely come on the coattails of the largest climate change initiative in North America; the province of Ontario is shutting down all of its coal-fired power plants by the end of 2014. As the coal plants have been mothballed one by one, the electricity used in Toronto has gotten cleaner.  The phase out wouldn't have been possible without the conservation measures that have caused per capita electricity use to drop 10% in the last 20 years, but new renewable energy and gas-fired power plants have also come online to fill in as the coal plants have been turned off. Natural gas is still a greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel though, and the progress report warns that natural gas is set to become “the new coal” unless something changes.  

Waste management was the other major player in Toronto's success, especially methane capture from landfills. Greenhouse gas emission from waste are down 52% largely due to better capture of methane at landfill sites.