Emory University students and faculty members attending the climate change talks in Paris are actively blogging on their site www.climate.emorydomains.org, dividing their entries according to business, political, cultural and scientific topics.
A recent entry described their meeting with Mayor Kasim Reed at the Le Bourget meeting site where the mayor spoke about Atlanta’s sustainability initiatives.
The mayor participated on a panel that also included the mayors of Sydney, Australia; Bogor, Indonesia; Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and a representatives from Cape Town, South Africa, and the World Resource Institute.
According to a Dec. 3 blog entry, the mayor “delivered a compelling address” about the city’s Commercial Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance that requires buildings over 25,000 square feet large to report their energy data.
The mayor also highlighted the city’s Solar Atlanta initiative, the transformation of the Bellwood Quarry into a 90-day reserve water supply and described the city’s participation in other initiatives with other cities around the world in the program titled the “Better Buildings Challenge.”
In addition, the mayor endorsed the emphasis placed on the city representatives to work together in an effort to “quickly implement workable and sustainable solutions to climate change problems in real-time.”
“You can pick up the telephone and call another mayor to discuss something you feel is exemplary,” Mr. Reed reportedly said. “And I’ll tell you that Mayor Bloomberg holds a pretty great party for the mayors after the meetings.”
The mayor is attending the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference as a participant in the Climate Summit for Local Leaders, which has been organized by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
Aside from the “Buildings Day” session, the mayor participated on a session titled “Cities and Regions, leading from the Front with Equity and Inclusion” on Dec. 4.
Atlanta’s sustainability director, Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, represented the city at the 2015 C40 Cities Awards dinner. The C40 group connects more than 75 cities in a network focused on promoting urban activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of urban residents.
Other blog entries include a review of the meaning of sustainability, the current threats to agricultural production, and a Canadian initiative to address the needs of low-income communities.
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