Cities for Climate Protection® (CCP)The Cities for Climate Protection is ICLEI’sflagship campaign, designed to educate and empower local governments world-wide to take action on climate change. The US CCP Campaign seeks to significantly reduceUS domestic greenhouse gas emissions by assisting local governments in taking action to reduce emissions and realize multiple benefits for their communities.

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Indian Tribes and Local Governments: Reducing Carbon Emissions with Wind Power

Indian Tribes and Local Governments: Reducing Carbon Emissions with Wind Power

Over 200 mayors from around the nation have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement D, which reads, in part:

“We urge the federal government and state governments to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the target of reducing global warming pollution levels to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, including efforts to: reduce the United States’ dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the develop-ment of clean, economical energy resources and fuel-efficient technologies such as conservation, methane recovery for energy generation, waste to energy, wind and solar energy, fuel cells, efficient motor vehicles, and biofuels;

“Cities will strive to meet or exceed Kyoto Protocol targets for reducing global warming pollution by taking actions in our own operations and communities such as: … Increase the use of clean, alternative energy by, for example, investing in “green tags”, advocating for the development of renewable energy resources, recovering landfill methane for energy production, and supporting the use of waste to energy technology; …”

Strategic ApproachICLEI uses the performance-oriented framework and methodology of the CCP Campaign's 5 Milestones to assist US local governments in developing and implementing harmonized local approaches for reducing global warming and air pollution emissions, with

the additional benefit of improving community livability.

CCP PartnersICLEI strengthens the service it provides its members and campaign participants through strategic partnerships with a variety of organizations, including:

NativeEnergy/Clean Air-Cool Planet Intertribal Council On Utility Policy (Intertribal COUP) The Climate Group US Environmental Protection Agency, ENERGY STAR

http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=1118

2005 RESOLUTIONENVIRONMENT:

ENDORSING THE U.S. MAYORS CLIMATE

PROTECTION AGREEMENT

The Energy Independence Day (EID) Campaign is Intertribal COUP’s

invitation to the ICLEI US-CCP mayors concerned about climate change and working to reduce emissions (through efficiency and renewable energy) to partner with Indian tribes interested

in converting their abundant wind resources into renewable electricity to provide sustainable reservation -

based economic development.

http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/resolutions/73rd_conference/env_04.asp

Tribes building sustainable rural economies through renewable energy:Meeting urban demands for clean, emissions-free electricity.

CO2 Emissions Reduction: A Voluntary City/Tribal

“Cap and Trade” ProgramWhat if over 200 U.S. cities concerned about global climate change purchased tribal wind power to reduce CO2 emissions? America’s urban load centers (the bright lights) consumethe bulk of conventional fossil-based electricity generation.

Much of that powerin the South and West is delivered over the federal transmissiongrids. In the West, the WAPA and BPA grids connect many remote, rural Indian reservations with these urban load centers. Tribes, withabundant wind, along with other renewable resources, are arrayedalong the federal grid system.

Tribes have recently been able to directly purchase WAPA power allocations from the federal dams as “preference customers”, and could become renewable energy providers to the federal grid as “preference vendors” of wind power for federal and urban electricity customers. (See:“Tribal Wind Power: Recharging the National Renewable Energy Grid in the West” poster).

Developing voluntary “clean energy trading partnerships” (rural tribal generators in the country’s best wind regimes and urban consumers in the nation’s ICLEI-CCP and the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ cities) could use the limited physical “capacity of the grid” to actually reduce the amount of fossil generation that is now used to make up for the diminished hydropower on the WAPA system. This voluntary “cap and trade” program from the heartlands could significantly reduce America’s carbon footprint with clean energy while building rural economies based on renewable energy development.

Aspen Sets the Pace!

In the northern Great Plains and throughout the West, a decade of persistent drought has reduced western rivers to record low flows. WAPA, which markets power allocations from a diminishing federal hydro resource through twenty year contracts, now relies primarily upon the retail purchase of coal generation to supple-ment its dwindling hydropower supply.

ICLEI US-CCP and USCM cities, like Aspen, Colorado, which is concerned about climate change and its impact upon winter recreation, has extensively inventoried its “carbon footprint” (energy input and carbon emission outputs) and has committedto carbon reductions through efficiency and greater use of renewable energy. Though a “preference customer” recipient of a WAPA allocation, Aspen can no longer count its WAPA power as a non-emissions resource, since it is, in fact, now “carbonated hydropower”. Aspen has requested that its federal hydropower allocation be 100% renew-able energy, so it can be counted in the clean column. If WAPA can not provide 100% hydropower, Aspen would prefer that WAPA supplement its allocation to the city with Native Wind power, with Tribes considered as “preference vendors”.

“ Entering the 21st century, a prime Native strategy encourages the development of sustainable homeland economies to ensure survival as Nations and for the restoration of a more balanced climate for Mother Earth. The Strategy includes the protection of naturally diverse ecosystems and the use of renewable energy technologies.” ~ Ronald L. Neiss, Rosebud Sioux Tribal Utility Commission

R. Gough and P. Spears, Intertribal Council On Utility Policy

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