Climate Change Initiative

2007 Winner -- Seattle, Washington

One of this year's award winners, the City of Seattle's Climate Change Initiative, reflects today's new era of partnership. In 2005, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels launched the Seattle Climate Protection Initiative to reduce the city’s own carbon footprint. By joining with local businesses and not-for-profits, Seattle first focused on an aggressive local effort to curb carbon output through such efforts as making its municipally owned electricity utility completely "carbon neutral," reining in sprawl with strong "smart growth" policies and regulations, regional transportation plans and projects to produce more climate-friendly transportation alternatives, and adding more trees
to development projects. The results were so significant, and
at so little cost, that Mayor Nickels drafted the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which has now been signed
by nearly 700 mayors. In November of this year, Seattle hosted a summit of mayors from across the nation to help spur local action to prevent the dangerous and disruptive effects of global warming. Former President Bill Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered keynote addresses at the summit.