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By Neal Peirce
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Are Americans up to shedding their mental blindfolds to learn powerful climate change strategies from Europe’s metropolitan regions?
Or put another way: Can we afford to wait any longer?
The issue was front and center earliest this month as the first-ever joint conference of major U.S. and European regional councils met in Northern Virginia. The regional leaders adopted a Declaration of Cooperation focused on innovative strategies to promote a raft of climate-friendly development practices.
Areas in which Europe has outpaced the United States include energy efficiency, renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power, “green” buildings, more transit and less car use, and smarter land use practices.
The Alexandria setting was fitting because the Northern Virginia Regional Commission -- through a decade of exchanges with counterparts in the Stuttgart, Germany, region -- has been inspired to adopt a range of conserving strategies. Among them: pedestrian-friendly streets and traffic calming measures, car-sharing, low-impact stormwater management, and steps to make the entire Washington capital region a national leader in green rooftop gardens that consume carbon dioxide.
But such success stories are rare. Too often, when our local government officials travel overseas to observe others practices, political opponents and/or our local newspapers pillory their trips as “junkets.” Our city and county budgets allow a fraction of the amounts Europeans regularly allocate for foreign trips and contacts. Federal and state governments work to sell U.S. products overseas, but rarely lift a finger to explore areas in which we lag -- Europe’s leap ahead, for example, in perfecting (and making money on) solar and wind power systems. The German Marshall Fund of the U.S. is a rare exception in seeking to support policy exchanges among local and regional officials.
Bottom line: We lose out, we lag, both environmentally and economically. In today’s fiercely competitive and dangerously warming world, it seems high time to kick our superior attitudes of “American exceptionalism.” That’s the notion that since we led the world on every step from the Declaration of Independence to winning two world wars and putting men on the moon, we’re inherently superior and don’t need to learn from others.
Another European advantage is the Network for European Metropolitan Regions and Areas -- METRIX -- formed in 1996 on the invitation of Glasgow, Scotland. Today METREX has grown to 50 member regions -- I’d call them citistates -- spread from Moscow to Lisbon, Helsinki to Rome. And it’s adopted strong values: clear, unified planning to achieve compact, transit-accessible metropolitan cities and towns, promote both the economy and social inclusion, and aim for rounded, environmentally sustainable development.
Now METREX is reaching out to begin exchanges with the United States and China, focusing especially on global warming issues, says Dr. Bernd Steinacher, METREX president and director of Verband Region Stuttgart. And why? “Climate change,” he told me, “is the biggest challenge we humans have ever faced. It needs our best technology, fighting our prejudices and comfortable mindsets.”
The European Commission is offering financial support to METREX. That alone is a glaring comparison to the U.S. and our largely disinterested federal government. Organizationally, we do have a National Association of Regional Councils, representing rural as well as urban areas. But we lack any organization really focused on the big citistates whose economy and environment will determine so much of our future.
Some current moves might, though, lead in that direction. A “Cool Counties” initiative, kicked off last year by 12 mostly heavyweight counties including King (Seattle), Wash., and Fairfax (Va.), is aimed at helping counties become climate resilient. King County, under its climate evangelist, County Executive Ron Sims, is hosting a May 20 meeting of an “Urban Leaders Adaptation Initiative” including Miami-Dade County, Nassau County (N.Y.) and the city of Chicago.
The Alexandria conference saw metro areas as disparate as Helsinki and Philadelphia present reports on their region-wide efforts. Both citistates bemoaned their land use sprawl, their need to expand public transport, and still continuing rises in greenhouse gas emissions.
But while Helsinki could point to national government support for two new rail lines, Philadelphia (and most other U.S. regions) are rarely so fortunate.
What could be reported by Barry Seymour, director of the Philadelphia region’s Delaware River Planning Commission, was a sharp rise in interest -- among utilities, local officials, the public -- in climate change projects.
Indeed, said Seymour, “climate change gives us a new way to package” an array of measures that his planners have long recommended but Philadelphia region leaders ignored. Among them: promoting walkable communities, creating more transit-oriented development, and moving aggressively (except in one or two counties) to save open spaces and natural systems in the path of development.
Finally, said Seymour, the value of the progressive environmental and land use ideas “has reached mass consciousness.”
But will real solutions gain enough traction to match climate change’s immense, pressing challenges? It’s hard to imagine unless our regions open their minds, reach out and learn from the achievements of top-achieving citistates around the world.
Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com
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