Mayor Landrieu to Launch Policy Friday on Climate Change, an 'Existential Threat' to New Orleans

Mayor Mitch Landrieu intends to put in place policy in New Orleans that he says will counter President Donald Trump's decision to walk the United States away from global environmental pacts.  A strategy he will reveal in full Friday (July 7) to combat climate change includes objectives such as reducing the city's carbon footprint and waste bound for landfills, increasing recycling and improving public transportation.

Landrieu previewed aspects of his plan,  "Climate Action for a Resilient New Orleans:  50% by 2030," during an editorial board meeting with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune ahead of his "State of the City" address Thursday evening.

Watch the mayor's speech here.

Along with crime, climate change is an "existential threat" New Orleans must confront, the mayor said.

"... If you don't worry about this now, in the year 2050, there's a fairly good chance that the land we now work on and live on, outside of the levee system, could deteriorate that dramatically based on the science," Landrieu said.  "It's not something that's going to happen.  It's happening now.  How fast it progresses is going to depend on stuff we can't control and some that we can control."

The mayor shared a preview of the policy document that will be made public Friday.  Some of the goals its sets for the year 2030 include include:

• 100 percent of power generation from low-carbon sources, with interim goals of 65 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2025.
• 55 megawatts of locally generated solar energy. For the sake of comparison, the new Entergy solar plant in New Orleans East generates 1 megawatt.
• A 50 percent increase in non-automobile trips through a redesign of regional public transit.
• Diverting 50 percent of waste bound for landfills through expanded recycling and other measures, with the goal of "zero waste achieved by 2050."

The mayor's emphasis on climate change mirrors his first policy initiative as the new president of the Conference of U.S. Mayors, a bipartisan group of leaders representing the nation's largest cities.  At the organization's annual meeting last month, Landrieu and other mayors spoke out against Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accords.

The conference supports the agreement that calls for global cooperation to reduce emissions and prepare for rising sea levels.  Trump announced June 1 he would withdraw the U.S. from the climate agreement, calling it a "draconian" deal that imposes unfair standards on American businesses.  The White House said afterward the president "remains committed ... to robust efforts to protect the environment."

In a June 24 speech to the Conference of U.S. Mayors, Landrieu said city leaders would continue to honor the spirit of the Paris accords.

"If the federal government refuses to act or is just paralyzed, the cities themselves, through their mayors, are going to create a new national policy by the accumulation of our individual efforts," he said.

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