“Good Morning. This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

“I just got back from two days in China, where I joined the C-40 Climate Leadership Group – an organization of many of the world’s great cities – for a major conference on climate change. New York has been part of the C-40 for a few years now, and our city even had the pleasure of hosting a summit of C-40 mayors in 2007. Now, in recognition of PlaNYC, our far-reaching sustainability agenda, the C-40 steering committee has asked me to lead the organization over the next two years.

“Cities have a leading role to play in the fight against climate change. For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population now lives in cities. Cities also consume 75 percent of the world’s energy, and produce more than 70 percent of its greenhouse gases. So while global warming clearly requires action at the national and international levels, city governments around the world have a responsibility to act boldly to address it too.  

“Worldwide, people are coming up with innovative ways to save energy and reduce carbon emissions. At the conference, we heard about the solar energy revolution in China, which now leads the world in manufacturing the hardware necessary to harness the sun’s power. And we learned from cities such as Sao Paulo about how they are generating electricity using organic waste instead of fossil fuels. I also shared with the conference the progress we’re making here in New York City on our PlaNYC green agenda, which aims to reduce our greenhouse gas production by 30 percent by the year 2030. One of the most important achievements of PlaNYC is our Green Buildings plan, which will save New Yorkers $700 million a year in energy costs, create more that 17,000 new jobs and shrink our carbon footprint by a size equal to that of the entire city of Oakland, California.

“PlaNYC will have a significant impact on our planet, but it is also improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods – from the new parks that we’re creating, to the energy households are saving, to the polluting vehicles we’re taking off our roads. In the past few weeks alone, we’ve broken ground on a new regional park in Rockaway, Queens and a park in Staten Island that will be a beautiful gateway to Fresh Kills – the largest landfill-to-park transformation in the country. We also began construction on a new recycling facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. This facility will create more than 150 new jobs, and it will allow us to transport more of our recyclables by barge, reducing the distance that our collection trucks currently travel by more than 260,000 miles a year.

“Each one of these small steps helps us advance the two biggest goals of PlanNYC: reducing our city’s carbon footprint and cleaning our air. And by sharing our strategies with other cities, and learning from them, we can have a major impact on the fight against climate change. The cities in the C-40 Climate Group represent about one-eighth of the world’s population, so the actions we take at the local level really do have a significant effect on the health of our planet. And today, New York City is in a unique position to help shape the global sustainability agenda and lead by example.

“This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Thanks for listening.