Green cities face off against polluting feds

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver tries to become the greenest city in the world. Canada looks at pulling out of the Kyoto Accord. It seems there’s a bit of a divide when it comes to environmental policy.  But one expert says municipalities can shame the feds into doing a greener job.

Patrick Smith, Urban Studies and Political Science professor at SFU, says Canadian civic politicians are up against a pretty strong force. “The current national government is entirely committed to probably the largest greenhouse gas producing project in North America, which is the tar sands.”

Historically, he thinks cities often lead the way environmentally. “City regions understand that they are major contributors to greenhouse gases and they can do something to assist.”

Smith says cities can commit themselves to being better than the nation. He points to Seattle, one of the world’s greenest cities, despite the US not being on board with higher standards.

He thinks Vancouver could do the same, “They might even, if they have some success, embarrass senior governments into taking more action.”

But it will always be hard without the federal funding, “Local governments have the most severe limits on their capacity to finance initiatives, especially new ones.”