Mike Bloomberg Names Four New Cities as Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge Winners

Well Lauren, thank you. It is great to be here in Los Angeles. The mayor has given us good weather. Thank you, sir. And it's especially great to be here at opening week of the NBA season. Congratulations on LeBron. I think the last time New York was excited about an NBA season starting I think you were in high school or something like that. But we're here to talk about climate change and how we can win the fight against it. And in a moment I will announce more winners of our America's Cities Climate Challenge. But first let me introduce one of our key partners on this project, NRDC President Rhea South. There are only a handful of people in the world doing as much to combat climate change as Rhea is. And she...okay. That's good. Thank you. If anybody wants to go on that tour you can. We'll wait for you to come back. Why don't we try anyways. Rhea is the NRDC President. She is one of the key partners in our project. And as I was about to say there are only a handful of people in the world doing as much to combat climate change as Rhea is. She was extraordinarily helpful in helping us select winners for this challenge. And now she'll tell you a little more about our process. Thank you so much Mayor Bloomberg. Both for those terrific and inspiring remarks but also for your incredible leadership on climate change. Starting with my hometown, New York City, Mr. Mayor, you have defined the vision for sustainability for literally dozens upon dozens of communities throughout America. Thank you also to Mayor Garcetti for hosting us in your remarkably beautiful state. I think it was probably almost 40 degrees when I got on the plane at JFK this morning. And so I am loving it. And it really, I think, is also a testament to this kind of beautiful city that is your asset, your leadership on environmental values and environmental issues for this incredible city. So look, I don't have to tell you that there actually isn't that much these days to celebrate around climate change. From the upside-down world that exists in Washington, D.C. to the latest IPC report, it's really clear that we have our work cut out for us. Yet amidst this bleakness, there are beacons, not just of hope, but really beacons of incredible opportunity that collectively add meaningful and measurable progress to curbing our climate emissions. As centers of population, culture, education, and commerce, our cities account for more than two-thirds of energy use worldwide and more than 70% of fossil fuel carbon pollution that is driving global climate change. In urban areas like L.A., buildings and transportation can account for upwards of 90% of that carbon pollution. So that's why fighting climate begins with our cities. And that's exactly what the American Cities Climate Challenge is all about. It's designed to scale up high-impact solutions that are already proven to succeed, specifically in the building and transportation sectors. The challenge will accelerate progress in 20 award-winning cities by implementing the right solutions in the right sectors to achieve big results. That means making our buildings more energy efficient, installing solar panels across city skylines, and investing in public transportation infrastructure so that people can breathe easily, get where they're going faster, and protect our planet. As the mayors here today can attest, when creative solutions meet bold leadership, change and transformational change can happen. And that's exactly what's happening here in L.A. and across the West Coast. But in L.A. in particular, it really wasn't that long ago, actually even in my memory, that this city bore the undesirable title of the smog capital of the world. And I'm sure you can attest to the fact that if we were standing here 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we probably would not be able to see the ocean, Baldwin Hills, downtown, skyline, Santa Monica. But in less than a generation, in less than a generation, L.A. has gone from a dirty air laggard to a global climate leader. You pledged to cut your carbon footprint nearly in half by 2025 and 80 percent, 80 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. And L.A. is already making progress. L.A. has put in place the most ambitious existing building efficiency ordinance anywhere in the country, which alone will slash emissions by 10 percent. L.A. has installed nearly 300 megawatts of solar, enough to power 75,000 California homes. And the city of Los Angeles now has one of the largest municipal fleets of electric vehicles in the country. You've demonstrated that climate action can benefit all communities by launching efforts like L.A.'s low-income electric vehicle car sharing program, which brings clean transportation options to some of L.A.'s most polluted communities. And by investing millions in safer streets and green infrastructure in places like Watts, one of L.A.'s iconic neighborhoods, through your Green Streets Challenge. You're also leading the way with novel new ideas, like creating low-emission zones and establishing a building decarbonization plan. Expanding the number of low-carbon transit options in the nation's largest local transportation infrastructure program so we can cut pollution and commuting time while creating safer and healthier communities. All of this innovation is about making life better for the people that live here in L.A. And it's about making life better, frankly, for the whole planet. And goodness knows, the truest test of this leadership is the kind of future we leave to our children. And if you're looking for what leadership looks like, thanks to the American Cities Climate Challenge, many of us will actually have the chance to see it in our own backyards, our communities, or our neighborhoods. And so, in contrast to the very large amount of very bad news that's out there, this is a great new story. Thank you so much. Ria, thank you. I was thinking while you were talking about how you used to be here, Mayor Lindsey, who was three or four mayors before me, once said in New York that he never wanted to breathe air he couldn't see. I might point out that he's no longer with us, but that's neither here nor there, probably not because of that reason. But we had the same problem in New York, and we made a big difference. And it's fascinating. I was thinking while Ria was talking, the two cities, New York and L.A., are very different in the context of where most of the pollution comes from. You have an enormous amount from transportation because the city's spread out. In New York, we have an enormous amount from buildings. In fact, we reverse the ratios. But we have to both focus on the same thing because cities are where the people are. Fifty percent of the world already lives in cities. Seventy percent in the next few decades will. So, cities are where the problems are. Cities are also where the solutions are. And mayors can't walk away from the risks that climate change poses because our constituents already are feeling the effects. And they do expect City Hall to take action. When someone's child is suffering from asthma because of dirty air or when their house burns down from a wildfire, they don't call their member of Congress. They call their mayor. And mayors understand that cutting carbon emissions is good for the cities. It makes them better places to live and also to work. So, it is good for the health of everybody. It is also good for the economy. If you think about it, energy efficiency saves taxpayers money. Mass transit and bike lanes help people get around. Parks make cities more attractive places to live and to work and to raise children. Reducing traffic improves economic productivity. And all of these steps clean the air, which helps people live longer and healthier lives. And they help cities attract new residents and new businesses that will create more jobs. And Mayor Garcetti has seen this in Los Angeles, where the economy is breaking records and the environment is greener than it has been in decades. And so, when Washington pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Mayor Garcetti helped us bring together a coalition of mayors from across the country to declare, we are still in. In New York City, we were able to cut carbon emissions by nearly 20% in just six years, while at the same time creating a record number of jobs. So, fighting climate change and growing the economy really go hand in hand. That was true in New York, and it is true here in Los Angeles. And they are making a lot of progress, a lot of progress. In the last four years, L.A. has created some 20,000 green jobs. In the U.S., we've been able to cut carbon emissions more than any other country over the last decade. And I should mention, the 2016 election has not stopped us. We have been closing coal-fired power plants in this country at the same rate since Donald Trump was elected than before Donald Trump was elected. And we've closed well over half of all the coal-fired power plants in this country. And they are far and away the biggest polluters. As a matter of fact, America is really the only large industrial country that is close to meeting its top 21 goals. And if Mayor Garcetti can continue to do what he's doing, and the other mayors across this country can do the same thing, we really will help the world. We have to get the rest of the world behind us, but we can certainly lead by example. And with climate change, even if everybody doesn't cooperate, whatever any one place does, it benefits everybody around the world. So we really have an obligation and our self-interest in doing this. Last year, emissions from the country kept falling despite the administration's best effort to prop up the coal industry, and in no small part because cities like L.A. have eliminated coal from the energy mix. In fact, cities are a big reason why the U.S. is doing what it's doing in terms of having some real hope and really making a difference. And I'm confident that with or without Washington, we will get there. This year, our foundation invited the 100 largest U.S. cities to come up with bold plans for cutting carbon emissions. We promised to pick the best of the bunch and provide each city with more than $2.5 million in resources to help implement their plans. We were looking for cities not only with ambitious goals but also realistic plans for reaching them and strong mayoral leadership to get the job done. The response could not have been more positive. Cities all around the country with both Republican and Democratic mayors submitted applications. We've already announced our first two winners. They were Seattle and Atlanta. And today, I'm glad to name some more cities that have won. In case you haven't already guessed, who would be the first one on my list? Congratulations, Los Angeles. You've won the City Climate Challenge. And so has San Diego, San Jose, and Portland. In their applications, these cities set bold goals, and I'm confident under the leadership of their mayors, they will achieve them. So I want to congratulate all of you on this award and thank you for your leadership. Thankfully, in the United States, the decisions that have the most influence over greenhouse gas emissions are not made by the federal government. They're made by CEOs and cities, all of which want cheaper power and cleaner air. But that doesn't mean we can't let Congress get away with doing nothing. Republicans in Washington have failed to lead on this issue. They've buried their heads in the sand. This is something that could kill everybody. It can certainly destroy our economies and the way we live. So I've decided to spend a lot of money helping Democrats this year take control of the House and the Senate. And I want to encourage all of you to do your part. Because as we've seen in Los Angeles, with the right leadership, we can win this fight. And I sincerely believe that we will. So let me again thank Mayor Garcetti for everything he's done here in Los Angeles and congratulate all four winning cities on the award. Mayor, would you say a few words? Well, thank you for saving the last for last. I'm reminded of a quote from Winston Churchill, that everything that needs to be said has been said, but it hasn't been said by everybody. So here I am. And let me thank my dear friend and an amazing American, as well as somebody who isn't just wearing a hat as an American, but somebody who has helped this globe breathe easier, live healthier. And that is Mike Bloomberg, who has for a long time been the paradigm for me as a mayor to strive for the sort of leadership that he provided in his city. And the way he has created a community of mayors through the creation of C40, through the work that he has done through Bloomberg Philanthropies. He has really showed us that cities are where work gets done. And we all connect with a local community. But he has knitted those local communities together. So thank you very much, Mike, for being here. Give him another round of applause. Thank you for bringing a little check with you, as well. I also want to thank Rhea. What I heard, if I was reading between the lines, is that you're moving NRDC's national headquarters here. And I'm really excited. I think the other members of the L.A. office are, too. But we had the great joy of dining together at the conference that Mike Bloomberg helped sponsor together with our governor, Jerry Brown, the summit that we had just a few weeks ago up in San Francisco. And I am a lifelong NRDC-er. We love the group here, the folks that are in the office here, the work that we're doing together. And thank you for being another one of those paragons for us, as well. Look, we're talking about human life here today. We're talking about two things, really. How do we move? And how does our stuff move to us? And how do we stay comfortable? In other words, in cold cities, how do you get warm? In warm cities, how do you get cold? How do we literally regulate the temperature around us in the spaces where we live? And then how do we move in the places that we live or the things that we consume? How do they move? Because those are the two greatest drivers of why this Earth is heating up. It's as simple as that. But it requires incredibly complicated reengineering of cities, which are these systems of systems that have been overlaid over many years long before we knew what was going to happen. But I love the L.A. example because you're right. This would have a generation been a day you couldn't see the first mountains there, let alone the second or the third. And while we still have work to do here and any place to continue cleaning our air, we realized this was a life and death a need. Before we knew about climate change, we had mothers at City Hall with gas masks saying that our children were dying. I grew up at the intersection of two freeways in the San Fernando Valley, and we had a cancer cluster on our street where leaded gas was spewing every single day. My mother, my father, and sister between the three of them have survived cancer eight times. I'm the only one, knock on wood, who hasn't contracted cancer, and I'm sure that the environmental situation that we're in was a big contributor to that. This isn't an abstraction, and it's fitting that we're in a planetarium because I think we have the last flat earther left in the White House who is out there saying that, well, he finally admitted last week, President Trump, that the Earth is changing, but he did say he thinks it's going to go back. He didn't say how. He didn't say why. But we literally have the last flat earther out there leading this country and the only country on the face of the globe that has indicated that it would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. And as I always remind people, we are not out of them yet. That has to happen ten days after the next presidential election. But let's get through November, and then we can talk about that in the future. But we have always been most powerful where we live. I learned one thing from Mike Bloomberg. I visited him when I was mayor-elect, and he was still mayor, in New York City. I saw what an impact we can have when we are focused on the communities where we live, on the transportation networks, on the buildings that we have. And this grant will allow us to do just that, to make sure by 2030 that every building built in Los Angeles is carbon neutral, and by 2050 that they are neutral altogether, including energy. That is also something I know you said 80% by 2050. We upped it a couple weeks ago. We've also made the pledge to be a carbon neutral city by 2050. It's a huge and a bold and a sometimes, yes, scary goal. But as our friend Al Gore says, the need has never been more, and the way to get there has never been easier or cheaper. We've seen that here in Los Angeles. We're up to now 30,000 green jobs, which just if you take that as a percentage of the remaining coal jobs left in America, in a town of about 1% of America's population, we've created the equivalent of 60% of the remaining coal jobs left in America. The number one solar city in America. The number one city when it comes to EV chargers, and this grant will help us accelerate that. This grant will help us get people on public transit. We can do this LA. We can do this America. And we can do this LA. picked Los Angeles essentially as the best-run city in America, as the only city to receive the gold standard. Let me just conclude by saying this. At a moment when we require human beings to come together, we have out-of-Washington forces that are pulling us apart. At a moment when we need to be informed by facts, we have people who instead are inventing imaginary problems and not even solving them. But I'm reminded of a poem by Robert Browning I read a couple weeks ago. In a line in it says, a man – and we should say a man and a woman – a man's reach must always exceed his grasp, or a person's reach should always exceed their grasp. The second line is, after all, what is heaven for? In other words, we reach for things we think we may not be able to hold. Folks who fought against slavery even though they died as slaves. Women who fought for the women's right to vote even though they never had that privilege. Folks who wanted to desegregate our schools. Folks who wanted to organize for our farm workers. People who wanted to make sure that people could marry whomever they wanted. Today we are reaching for something that might feel beyond our grasp. But whether it is us or our children or our children's children who get to hold that, it will have been because we and our imagination was bigger than today. We saw that future that was made possible. And we couldn't do this without Greenberg and philanthropies and Mike Greenberg. Thank you all so much. I appreciate it. I will have you take any questions if there are any. Well, I've known the President for a long time. Not all that well, but he was a developer in New York City and we cut some ribbons together. We took the subway together one time. I never heard him talk about science back then. He always talked about building golf courses, which I'm sympathetic to, and housing, some of which he did. I don't know why the President said some of these things. My great hope is that one day he gets an epiphany and he turns around and understands the problem and tries to help. He's going to be the President of the United States for the next two years, and he has a chance to be for the next six years. And we've got to make sure that this country functions. We cannot walk away from science. We cannot defund medical research and scientific research. And, unfortunately, that's what we're doing. And while the President bears a great deal of responsibility for that, I will say that Congress has been going along with it, and they should be ashamed of themselves and what they're doing to our future. Well said. I would just say, similarly, that this is a President who, unfortunately, isn't listening. He isn't listening to this earth. He isn't listening to the communities he represents. Tell a firefighter, his family, who's died on the line in record fires that each year seem to get bigger here in California, based on record drought, which is based on climate change happening, whether or not it's real. Ask families in Houston who were devastated by Harvey or folks that are underwater in South Carolina, folks in the Florida panhandle who lost everything, whether this is real or not. And so it is encouraging to finally hear him say what we all know, the change is there. We need him to take the next step, and this is much bigger than politics. He needs to act now. He is our President. I want him to represent all of us. I want him to take the right moves. But in the meantime, we're not waiting. Cities are where the action is at anyways. Whether it was President Clinton or President Trump, we would still have to do what we're doing. We have 412 cities to date who have signed up as part of Climate Mayors, the group that I founded and co-chair and that is supported by Bloomberg, to pledge that they will implement Paris even if we won't. And as he said, we're ahead. And in our last year that we measured here in Los Angeles, we reduced our greenhouse emissions by 11 percent in a single year, and our unemployment went down by 14 percent. So for this President who cares a lot about the economy too, it's a way to create more jobs. And trust me, we need those. Other questions? Well, you know, there's a reason for hope here. A lot of things are getting better. As the Mayor pointed out, greenhouse gases have come down here in L.A., across the country, and the 18 percent is a good number for greenhouse gas reduction in America. People are waking up. If you look, people are painting the roofs of their houses white to reflect off the sun and reduce their energy bill. They're going to LEDs and compact fluorescent bulbs to reduce energy. They're driving more fuel-efficient cars. They're doing the things that they can to reduce their energy consumption, and that helps. And then corporations are doing it. Corporations today, if you take a look, they are among the leaders in combating climate change. Why? Because their customers want them to be. Because their employees want them to be. And because their investors want them to be. And so you see ExxonMobil running ads, don't drop out of COP21. Where do you think that came from? It's because it's in the interest of their stockholders. They think it is, and I agree with them. And so between the corporate world and the private world, and then local governments are where government really plays a role. Although I will say in California, as the Mayor mentioned, Jerry Brown, he has really been a leader in California at a state level, has been maybe the most aggressive and far-thinking state in terms of combating climate change in this country. One thing I'd add, you'll see more electric chargers on our streets. You'll see a public engagement campaign to ride transit this year as a result of this. And you'll see more further work that we'll do on our building efficiency as we try to reduce. One of the things I'd like to apply this to, after we saw the gas leak that was out in Porter Ranch, is moving people towards thermal water heaters, which we obviously have abundant sunlight, and we've had a lot of our use of gas. I think a lot of people think natural gas was this bridge fuel, but we need to get not only beyond coal, we need to get beyond carbon, and this grant will help us do that this year. Anybody else? Yes, sir. We seem to come up with a new program for Bloomberg Philanthropies to fund every single year. I don't think you have to worry about that. Seriously, Jim Anderson and Anthea Williams, who runs our cities and our environmental practice, have lots of ideas. We have a number of different things. And I think it's true that no city has won more grants from Bloomberg Philanthropies than L.A. did after Mayor Garcetti became mayor. So I'm happy to send you our money. Thank you. You never know until you try. I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump, nobody thought he would be a formidable candidate when he started running, and yet here he is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. So you never know. I don't know. I don't try to speculate on what other people are doing. I do know that this country needs leadership that we do not have now. And it comes from the White House. It also comes from Congress. I can't do anything about the White House now, but I can help. And my foundation isn't doing it, but I personally am doing it, of trying to change the leadership and the majority in the House and the Senate to Democratic organizations that say they will do the right thing. And rest assured, I assume we'll win. I hope we'll win. And if we do win, I will be there every day trying to hold their feet to the fire and say this is what you said you're going to do. We're tired of people promising one thing when they run and doing the reverse or nothing when they get into office. We're not going to let that happen. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it. Well said. Appreciate it.