Mayor aims to cut city's greenhouse emissions

The city of Boston must steeply reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its vehicle fleets and government buildings under a plan by Mayor Thomas M. Menino unveiled yesterday that would put the Hub at the fore of cities acting to counter global warming .

Though the plan is aimed initially at Boston government operations, Menino set up a task force to recommend changes that would apply to all businesses and households in the city , with a broad mandate to determine ways the city as a whole can cut greenhouse emissions.

Within several months, said Menino, businesses and residents will be eligible for low- or no-interest loans to pay for retrofitting their homes and workplaces with efficient energy technology, a potential $500 million program that would be the largest of its kind in the nation. Money for the loan program would be raised from private investors.

Menino put his 15-point plan into immediate effect yesterday with an executive order, portraying his new measure as a rebuke to global-warming doubters.

"Despite what the White House says, the facts are clear: . . . Climate change is happening. Global warming is real," he said.

Under Menino's plan, Boston city government, which owns more than 400 buildings and 2,000 vehicles, must cut greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. Levels from 1990 are an international benchmark agreed on by scientists and environmentalists. As a first step, the city government must cut emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

To accomplish that, Menino outlined several policies the city has adopted or plans to adopt. All new municipal buildings constructed must exceed federal government energy efficiency standards by at least 14 percent, and renovations will have to exceed them by at least 7 percent.

Additionally, at least 15 percent of electricity bought by the city must come from renewable energy sources by 2012; that means the city will have to find providers that can supply electricity created by wind, solar, or hydro power.

In the next five years, the city must also increase the amount of material it recycles by at least 10 percent. Total fuel consumption by city vehicles must drop 5 percent by 2012.

And new city vehicles must use alternative fuels, have flexible fuel engines, or use hybrid technology, except in cases in which such options are not available.

The city will police itself in meeting efficiency targets. Every city department will be evaluated annually by the mayor's office to determine how well it is complying. Those found lagging will be required to implement policies to improve their results.

Menino said that among factors spurring him to act were predictions that downtown Boston could one day regularly be hit by floods if global warming continues unabated.

"Boston is a city on the water," Menino said. "Our waterfront will be the first to feel the effects of rising sea levels."

The mayor's move comes as scientific consensus and cultural shifts have transformed global warming into a marquee political issue. Boston now joins major cities like Seattle and San Francisco, as well nearly a dozen other states, in setting broad emission reduction targets in the absence of a national policy.

US Representative Edward J . Markey, Democrat of Malden and a point man on global warming in the Democrat-controlled Congress , appeared with Menino at a press conference yesterday, saying he would use the Boston experiment as a model for national legislation to counter global warming's effects . Menino will be called to Capitol Hill to testify on his efforts.

"We're glad that Boston now has two green monsters, one at Fenway Park and one now in city hall," Markey said.

Local environmentalists lauded Menino's plan as far-reaching and substantial.

"It does put us ahead of the curve, but in a realistic way," said Sue Reid, staff attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation. "We now have a whole array of tools at our disposal, and we need to use them all."

City government accounts for an estimated 5 percent of greenhouse gases emitted in Boston, according to city environmental officials. The rest comes from private homes and businesses.

Menino's new Community Climate Action Task Force will study proposals to bring the city's private sector into the fold. The task force will be made up of representatives from government, business, labor, and environmental groups and report back to Menino in one year.

"The task force is looking to take these efficiencies citywide, to see how we can engage the private sector, our utilities, businesses, residential, small companies," said James W. Hunt, Menino's chief of environmental and energy services, who will attend task force meetings on behalf of the mayor.

Within about nine months, city officials hope to be offering low- or no-interest loans to businesses and households that decide to install more energy-efficient technologies, from low-energy fluorescent lightbulbs in a large office to insulated roofing or more efficient heating and cooling systems.

The loans would come from a fund of up to $500 million, according to Hunt, financed by private investors. He said the program would exploit a boomlet of interest among venture capitalists and private investors in financing green technologies as a means of jump-starting research and development by firms in that sector. A similar program, expected to secure up to $70 million in private funding, was recently adopted in Cambridge.

Menino -- speaking yesterday at the newly renovated Children's Museum, which has been outfitted with green technology that reduces its electricity consumption -- said his plan would be his legacy to future Bostonians.

Global warming "calls our attention to the future of the world that our grandchildren will inherit," he said. "If we don't take action now, we could face severe consequences."