Cities for Climate

1
Indian Tribes and Local Governments Reducing
Carbon Emissions with Wind Power
R. Gough and P. Spears, Intertribal Council On
Utility Policy
2005 RESOLUTIONENVIRONMENT ENDORSING THE U.S.
MAYORS CLIMATE PROTECTION AGREEMENT
Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) The Cities
for Climate Protection is ICLEIs flagship
campaign, designed to educate and empower local
governments world- wide to take action on climate
change. The US CCP Campaign seeks to
significantly reduce US domestic greenhouse gas
emissions by assisting local governments in
taking action to reduce emissions and realize
multiple benefits for their communities.
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?id1118
The Energy Independence Day (EID) Campaign is
Intertribal COUPs 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_conf
erence/env_04.asp
CO2 Emissions Reduction A Voluntary
City/Tribal Cap and Trade Program
What if over 200 U.S. cities concerned about
global climate change purchased tribal wind
power to reduce CO2 emissions? Americas urban
load centers (the bright lights) consume the bulk
of conventional fossil-based electricity
generation.
Much of that power in the South and West is
delivered over the federal transmission grids.
In the West, the WAPA and BPA grids connect
many remote, rural Indian reservations with
these urban load centers. Tribes, with abundant
wind, along with other renewable resources, are
arrayed along the federal grid system.
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 committed to
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.
NativeWind
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. (SeeTribal
Wind Power Recharging the National Renewable
Energy Grid in the West poster). Developing
voluntary clean energy trading partnerships
(rural tribal generators in the countrys best
wind regimes and urban consumers in the nations
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 Americas
carbon footprint with clean energy while building
rural economies based on renewable energy
development.
TM
Energy Independence
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
Tribes building sustainable rural economies
through renewable energy Meeting urban demands
for clean, emissions-free electricity.
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