With the near-term prospects of the United States enacting a country-wide cap on its greenhouse gas emissions having vanished, more focus is falling on so-called bottom-up actions to address climate change. With this in mind, the President of the EU Committee of the Regions, Mercedes Bresso, was in Washington DC, on 20 January, talking about the issue at the US Conference of Mayors (USCM), where 230 American mayors were gathered for the organisation’s winter plenary.

In an exclusive interview with Europolitics, Bresso said her goal was to foster more exchanges between European and American mayors so that they can learn from one another’s best practices in addressing climate change. She noted how at the national level, US leaders “are reticent” to act, adding that the Republicans’ taking back control of the House of Representatives earlier in January “has not helped”. By contrast, she found that “the mayors are more in favour of doing something” and she welcomed their “pragmatic, practical approach” that focuses on job creation.

Bresso said that European mayors could learn from their American counterparts in certain areas - for example on how to involve the private sector in projects. US mayors were more used to having to do this, she said, as they often have to function with smaller budgets than European mayors. Bresso highlighted a new, EU-funded €1 million programme that will lead to more exchanges of good practices being organised between EU and US cities. She noted that a delegation of European mayors would present their projects at the USCM’s next conference, in Baltimore in June 2011. While climate change formed the focus of Bresso’s address to the plenary, the USCM’s conference agenda was broader than this, including policies on energy, job creation and transportation. Apart from attending the conference, Bresso also met with US administration officials, including the Director of the White House Office for Urban Affairs, Derek Douglas.

European mayors have signed a covenant that commits them to try to exceed the EU’s overall target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. In October 2010 in Brussels, the USCM President, Elizabeth B. Kautz, signed a cooperation agreement with Bresso. City and state-level action on climate in the US is not new. Indeed, during the administration of George W. Bush, between 2001 and 2009, it formed the core of the concrete actions being taken. President Barack Obama has tried to take up the mantle at federal level, but he has failed thus far to persuade Congress to adopt a US-wide cap on emissions. As a result, Obama plans to use his Environmental Protection Agency to put in place piecemeal regulations in areas like fuel emission standards. However, few believe that this alone will enable him to achieve his stated target of reducing US emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.