Published on 23 Sep 2015 Written by Rick Fedrizzi Posted in International
This article was originally published on Huffington Post.
News broke in November of last year that the world’s largest developing nation and the world’s most developed nation would ramp up efforts to work together in fighting climate change. President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping made a historic joint announcement on climate change in 2014, establishing ambitious climate pledges and committing to work together, and with other countries, to achieve a global climate agreement in Paris this December.
At the upcoming U.S.-China Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities Summit in Los Angeles, both nations are expected to announce actions to combat ongoing climate change. A leader in energy efficiency, Los Angeles is an ideal city to host the summit, the first major event held since the 2014 presidential agreement between the two countries. This convening could not be timelier for the City of Los Angeles, as Mayor Eric Garcetti released the city’s first-ever sustainability plan in April of this year, titled Sustainable City pLAn.
The Sustainable City pLAn focuses on the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social; and sets the bold goal of reducing city emissions by 80 percent by 2050, with a short term target of a 30 percent reduction in emissions by 2017, both compared to 1990 levels. Buildings are heavily targeted under the mayor’s plan, as they are the largest consumers of electricity in the city and are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Los Angeles has already established a successful approach with its Green Building Program.
The Green Building Program requires larger structures to be certified under the 15-year-old LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System and mandates that all new municipal construction or major renovations to municipally owned buildings must achieve, at minimum, LEED Silver certification. To date, the city has certified more than 50 of their buildings, making up more than 2 million square feet of building space, under LEED. With the new plan, the city aims for a 30 percent reduction in energy use across all building types by 2035—backed up by an array of additional policy measures and actions to drive improvement in all building types, including private sector.
Rick Fedrizzi
CEO & Founding Chairman U.S. Green Building Council
Member employees, USGBC staff, USGBC board