City of Cleveland Recognized as Leader in Climate Change Action

CLEVELAND – The City of Cleveland has recently received global recognition for its Climate Action Plan and its public reporting of climate change initiatives. Yesterday the Carbon Disclosure Project announced that out of 200 reporting cities, Cleveland is a top ten global city in climate reporting. To highlight their achievement, CDP has created in-depth InFocus reports for Cleveland which is available here.

“It’s an honor to be one of CDP’s top ten reporting cities,” said Jenita McGowan, Chief of Sustainability for the City of Cleveland. “I think it reflects not only the City’s commitment to transparently reporting our greenhouse gas emissions, but also reducing those emissions.”

In addition to recognition from the Carbon Disclosure Project, Cleveland has also been named as a global finalist and one of three US cities in the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour City Challenge Finalist for 2015. The year-long challenge recognizes cities that respond to the threats of climate change by reducing their carbon footprint.

WWF selected thirty-four cities from fourteen countries on the basis of smarter transportation, cleaner energy, efficient buildings and less waste. Some of Cleveland’s accomplishments highlighted by WWF include: the Solarize Cleveland program, Sustainable Cleveland’s annual celebration years, Mayor Jackson’s annual sustainability summit, and the Neighborhood Climate Action Toolkit.

One of these cities will serve as the 2015 U.S. Earth Hour City Capital and receive funding from WWF to advance local climate readiness efforts. Over forty local governments from across the country are members of this year’s group of Earth Hour City Challengers.

Clevelanders can get involved and help Cleveland earn the title by doing the following: