Fighting global warming can boost economic growth

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: Former President Clinton told mayors gathered at a conference last week that fighting global warming was a chance to create good jobs and give an economic boost to the middle class, to save cities and residents money with improved energy-efficiency.

He urged the mayors, business leaders and community members in attendance at Benaroya Hall, Seattle, to view climate change as an opportunity.

“It is a godsend,” he said. “It is not castor oil that we have to drink. It is in my view, for the United States, the greatest economic opportunity that we’ve had since we mobilized for World War II. And if we do it right, it will produce job gains and income gains substantially greater than those produced in the 1990s when I had the privilege to be president.”

The crowd—many of whom were in Seattle for a climate change summit organised by the US Conference of Mayors—repeatedly applauded his words of encouragement and vision for addressing global warming.

The Clinton Foundation more than a year ago started the Clinton Climate Initiative to specifically assist cities internationally working to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

One of its prime strategies is pooling the cities’ buying power into a consortium and joining with vendors to bring down the costs of energy-efficient items by making high-volume purchases. Clinton said the goal was to give manufacturers larger, guaranteed markets, which would cut prices; he recounted similar strategies that he’d used to successfully slash the costs of AIDS medications in impoverished nations.

During the speech, he announced a partnership between his climate initiative and Wal-Mart to support the development of energy-efficient lights and building materials and clean-energy technology. One of the first projects will be seeking ultra-efficient light-emitting diode, or LED, street- and parking lot lights.

While the initiative initially focussed on the 40 largest cities in the world, Clinton said the buying consortium would be expanded to include the 1,100 cities that are members of the US Conference of Mayors.

Clinton repeatedly emphasised the importance of the mayors’ leadership in reducing planet warming pollution.

“If we can’t do it here, they won’t do it in Europe, they won’t do it in Japan, they won’t do it anywhere useless we can prove that you don’t have to become poorer to do it,” he said.

The message was well-received. Mayors from around the country said they struggle to make arguments about climate change that resonate outside wealthy, left-leaning communities such as Seattle.