5/17/2007

Clinton announces launch of "Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Programme" in 40 cities...

Bill Clinton announced his intention to finance an urban energy efficiency program in what was called the "C40" , a collection of 40 cities around the world. The initial participants are Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, Johannesburg, Karachi, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Rome, Sao Pa ulo, Seoul, Tokyo, and Toronto. The plan was announced in New York at the Mayor's summit, and will be one part of the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI).

Clinton is quoted as saying, "The businesses, banks and cities partnering with my foundation are addressing the issue of global warming because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is good for their bottom line." I would be interested to see a complete list of participants and financiers so I could compare it to campaign contribution disclosures from his wife's presidential bid. My point being, I doubt Clinton's partners are the only parties to this relationship who stand to see benefits in their bottom line.

Another element of the CCI program is a partnership announced today with Microsoft to develop online tools for enabling the world's 40 largest cities to monitor carbon emissions. Clearly there must be some profit motive involved in this project as well, since Microsoft doesn't do anything without a guaranteed premium.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

FYI: your title says "40 cities in the US" but your article says, "40 cities around the world."

Other than that, this is interesting, for some reason I haven't heard of this plan yet and it seems like it'll be pretty major. Keep us updated!


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