Bloomberg: Federal, state governments ‘doing nothing’ on environment

Outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that cities worldwide are making environmental progress while national governments and states dither.

“Federal governments and state governments are doing, I think it’s fair to say, nothing in terms of addressing the environmental problems,” Bloomberg said in New York City.

“That actually is overstating what they’re doing, because they’ve passed lots of legislation which is going in the wrong direction,” he said at the CityLab: Urban Solutions to Global Challenges summit, according to a transcript.

He touted the international C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group that he chairs and his own initiatives on greenhouse gases and building efficiency, noting New York City is already over halfway toward its pledge of cutting carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

{mosads}“If the cities that are in C40 were a separate nation, they would be the third-largest population, the second-largest economy, and the fifth-largest carbon footprint on Earth,” he said. “So our combined potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the equivalent of taking all of the cars off every road in the entire United States. And we have a really good chance to do this. These cities are committed.”

Bloomberg has praised the Obama administration in the past.

His November 2012 endorsement of President Obama lauds “major steps” first-term steps on climate and the environment, such as tougher auto mileage rules and mercury emissions standards for power plants.

Monday’s speech found Bloomberg pretty downbeat on Washington, D.C. over the partial government shutdown.

“As we all know here in the United States, if you just contrast what’s happening in cities compared to what’s happening in Washington, [in] the cities’ people are working across party lines, as we’re doing today, to solve problems in new, creative ways. In Washington, the partisanship has gotten so bad that the two parties can’t even agree on how to keep the lights on,” he said.

“The fact is, Washington is increasingly unresponsive to the needs of our country and cities are filling the void in a very big way by taking actions to address the most pressing challenges of our time,” Bloomberg said.