How can municipalities save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions? That’s what representatives of cities, towns and counties came to Atlanta to learn, as the international organisation ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability held its first Southeastern regional workshop, focussing on climate and energy issues.

The British Consulate-General in Atlanta and the Home Depot Foundation, headquartered in Atlanta, sponsored the event which drew delegates from Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama.

Consul General Annabelle Malins welcomed delegates to the event.  “The UK sets climate and energy as a very high priority, and that counts for our domestic policy as well as our international priorities,” Mrs Malins said.  

“In the UK we’ve been able to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and de-couple that from economic growth. We are on target to reduce emissions by more than 20 percent by 2012, compared to a 1990 baseline. And before the current economic crunch, our economy had grown by something like 40% during the same time period. So that’s good economic growth, ” Ms. Malins said.

The British Consulate-General brought in Ray Morgan, Chief Executive of the Woking Borough Council, as a keynote speaker. Woking—a town of more than 90,000 people outside London-- has become a model municipality for engagement on energy and climate issues, with delegations from around the world visiting to learn best practices. Woking’s green efforts have been cross-party, with the support of Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democratic members of the borough council.  

Mr. Morgan said that between 1990 and 2006, Woking’s government operations — including everything from borough offices and  housing for older residents, to  recreation centres and garbage trucks --  cut energy use by 28%, and slashed carbon emissions by 55%.

This has saved taxpayers about $1.5 million a year, which has then been available for re-investment into energy-saving schemes.

“We did it through simple, human-level behaviours,” Mr. Morgan said. “We changed our lights and our lighting controls, added insulation, and replaced desktop PCs with smaller devices that use less energy and generate less heat.”

As the town’s green efforts advanced, it set up its own power company, put in efficient combined heat and power generators, solar panels, and even a fuel cell at the borough’s indoor swimming pool. It also involved the wider community, engaging businesses, faith groups, and schools, and helping individual households live more lightly on the Earth.  

“Think about it like a business. Think about it like an accountant,” said Mr. Morgan, an accountant by profession. “Think about resources on the balance sheet of our lives.”

Mr. Morgan said the world is looking to the United States to lead on energy and  climate change, especially as nations around the globe get ready to meet in Copenhagen in December to hammer out the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. That treaty represented the first step in a United Nations-sponsored effort to combat climate change, but it expires in 2012. The Copenhagen meeting is designed to determine what path the world will take next.

“America is pivotal to that journey,” Mr. Morgan said.

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