The Climate on the Other Side of the World:

In December of 2004, CA-CP’s Amelia Ravin participated in an exchange project sponsored by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and the City of Newton. The 10-day trip gave Amelia and her traveling companion Kim Lundgren, Environmental Agent for the City of Medford, Massachusetts, a first-hand look at greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts by municipal officials in Porto Alegre, Brazil—as well as a chance to participate in side events for local governments at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, the 10th conference of the parties in Buenos Aires, Argentina (COP 10). Amelia’s observations from this trip…

TWINNING WITH PORTO ALEGRE

In November 2004, the Environmental Secretary and the Cities for Climate Protection Liaison for Porto Alegre visited the Metro Boston area to learn about climate and energy initiatives, as did Laura Valente, Director of ICLEI’s Rio de Janeiro office. The trip that Kim and I took was the second half of this “twinning” effort between Boston and Porto Alegre, organized by ICLEI and Massachusetts State Representative Jim Marzilli.

Given what we saw in Porto Alegre, we couldn’t have been more impressed or invigorated by the city’s environmental staff, projects and programs. In this city of 1.5 million, the municipal environmental agency manages to maintain a staff of several hundred, working on projects from park preservation and landscaping to air pollution, environmental education and recycling. Never having traveled to South America, I had the impression that developing countries would have far fewer resources to spend on environmental protection. But what I saw in Porto Alegre is that environmental programs are integrated into other social issues and programs there, resulting in far more sustainable solutions for the community. They also run environmental education programs that reach several hundred thousand residents annually. Here are just a few examples from our first-hand learning experience:

Parks & preservation:

At the Lami Biological Reserve, a 179-acre municipally owned park on the outskirts of the city, Porto Alegre staff work with school children on environmental education programs and run an indigenous plant pharmacy for the community. Porto Alegre takes great care of its inner city parks too: the municipal nursery supplies all plant material for municipal parks, grown with compost from their recycling programs.

Solid waste and social inclusion:

Porto Alegre runs several cooperatives to sort solid waste, compost materials, and recycle everything possible. These programs offer well-paid jobs to the city’s poor and provide a profitable environmental service. This is an excellent example of a truly sustainable program: combining environmental, economic and social issues to create a sound, politically feasible solution.

Driving towards cleaner air:

Another example of a sustainable approach to environmental protection is the city’s system for reducing pollution from their public buses. Mini-computers on each bus measure the driver’s efficiency in real time, providing an opportunity to learn and correct fuel-inefficient driving habits. Financial savings are returned to the drivers with best ratings achieved with the computer data. Incentives like this have gone a long way toward improving fuel efficiency in the city’s bus fleet, saving money and reducing local air pollution – imagine the impact this kind of program could have in Metro Boston!

After three days of touring with the city officials we were sad to leave and felt that we could have stayed another week to see all of their environmental projects. Both Metro Boston and Porto Alegre officials hope this relationship will continue between north and south because we still have a lot to share and to learn from each other.

SOUTH AMERICAN CITITES UNITE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION

Kim and I returned to Buenos Aires for three more days of COP 10 events and ICLEI-organized seminars, tours and, of course, delicious Argentine meals and parties, along with government officials from all over South America. Also present were officials from Calgary and Abbottsford, Canada, who were participating in a similar twinning project with the City of Buenos Aires. Kim and I presented to a group of about 25 South American officials the projects and programs happening in the Metro Boston area, and heard many success stories of other twinning projects with South American cities.

On the final day of our visit, ICLEI South America presented a panel of local government leaders on climate protection at the United Nations COP10 Conference. Mayor Anibal Ibara of Buenos Aires was flanked by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson; the Vice Mayor of Barcelona; the Deputy Mayor of Abbottsford, British Columbia; City Councilors from Palmas, Brazil, and Milan, Italy; and others. ICLEI also launched their new “Target ZERO” program at this event, a program seeking municipal commitment for eventual drastic reductions in carbon emissions.

Now back in the chilly Northeast, reflecting on this experience, I am grateful for the opportunity to have met these community leaders and learned about so many inspiring projects on the other side of the world. I look forward to keeping this international channel of information open, continuing to build relationships with community leaders from other countries. Through CA-CP’s Communities program, with support from the Oak Foundation, we will be doing just that this spring with Canadian climate champion cities, bringing a delegation from Northeast cities to Toronto and Fredericton, New Brunswick to experience and learn first-hand of global warming solutions from our northern neighbors.

So stayed tuned for more news about our efforts to team up with international cities to create more global warming solutions in the Northeast!