Mayor De Blasio Announces New Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cuts At Vatican Conference
VATICAN CITY (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio is in Vatican City attending a conference on climate change aimed at keeping up the pressure on national leaders ahead of climate talks in Paris later this year.
De Blasio is a founding member of an alliance of cities around the world that have committed to reducing their emissions by 80 percent by 2050 or sooner.
He addressed a room of about 65 mayors and elected officials from around the world and announced new greenhouse gas emissions targets for the Big Apple at the Vatican conference Tuesday.3
"It's increasingly clear that we, the local leaders of the world, have many tools -- more than we may have in fact realized and that we must use them boldly even as our national governments hesitate," de Blasio said.
De Blasio said New York was taking an interim step, committing to reducing its emissions by 40 percent by 2030.
"The Paris summit is just months away,'' de Blasio said. "We need to see it as the finish line of a sprint, and take every local action we can in the coming months to maximize the chance that our national governments will act boldly.''
De Blasio is scheduled to return to New York City on Wednesday.
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