In April 2005, Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson signed the US Conference of Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. This Agreement, as of February 2008 signed by over 700 US mayors, obligates communities that sign it to undertake an effort and process to reduce the community’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7% below 1990 levels by 2012.
Louisville’s efforts are being implemented by a community-wide stakeholder group under the auspices of the Partnership for a Green City. Louisville’s Climate Change Committee had its first meeting in December 2006 and our goal is to have Louisville’s first Climate Action Plan in place and ready for implementation by early 2009.
The Committee has established six subcommittees to carry out the primary work of developing strategies and recommendations to achieve the goals of the Climate Protection Agreement. The subcommittees are as follows:
1) Greenhouse Gas Emissions—Inventories, trading, registries, offsets and other related mechanisms
2) Land Use, Transportation, Urban Forestry and related policies
3) Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy—opportunities to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy
4) Education and Outreach—raising the community’s awareness, changing behaviors and addressing students’ curriculums and related opportunities
5) Utility Regulations, Policies and Procedures—examining barriers, incentives, etc such as net metering, demand side management, renewable portfolio standards and related approaches
6) Local Impacts—meteorological, ecological, public health, etc. and need and opportunity for mitigation, adaptation, etc.
To facilitate the work of the Committee and subcommittees, the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District, which is chairing the Committee and providing staffing as needed for the process, has established this web site area to provide useful information about the work of the Committee and the subcommittees (such as meeting dates, times and locations) and to have a centralized location to archive important documents utilized by the stakeholders in the process.
This undertaking is a community-wide and inclusive effort and we would welcome participation by interested members of the community. If you might have an interest in participating in the process by serving on the full committee or one or more of the subcommittees please contact Art Williams at 502-574-8689 or by e-mail.