ICLEI EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT – 2003-2005

Margaret’s Report to Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment

I was elected to the Executive Committee of ICLEI in October 2003 and have served for two years as the only US member on the international board. My goal is to be a voice for Seattle as well as for American local governments in environmental matters.

Creating a corporate entity for ICLEI in the United States, rather than relying on a Canadian legal entity, has been one of our organizational tasks during my term. Having a US corporation makes it easier to access US government grants and some American foundations. Quarterly ICLEI USA Inc. board meetings, held by teleconference, have put in place bylaws, budgets, personnel policies, and essential policies. Along with the new corporate form, ICLEI USA has a new director and a new office location in Oakland, CA.

Building US membership is another goal. There are perhaps 100 US cities that participate in ICLEI’s Climate Protection program without having signed up as ICLEI members. Mayor Nickels’ leadership on Kyoto standards with the US Conference of Mayors will increase the number of participating cities. Establishing and achieving US membership targets is one of my priorities as ICLEI’s sole US ExCom member.

November 2003. The City of Cape Town convened a workshop for South African cities to find alternative energy strategies. ICLEI identified Seattle’s 25-year record of using our building energy code to reduce energy demand as a municipal best practice, and they invited me to make a presentation at the Cape Town workshop. The Cape Town workshop was a dynamic event, confirming for me the power of city-to-city interaction, even across very different cultural and economic circumstances.

January 2004. I made several trips to Canada to talk with various ICLEI and World Water Council officials about expanding ICLEI’s Water Campaign. The World Water Council represents an international commitment to meet aggressive targets for water supply and sanitation in developing countries. Local governments are key to implementing these goals, and ICLEI has the track record for participatory process, capacity-building among elected officials, and best practices in urban sustainability. The World Water Council was polite but skeptical about whether we could transfer ICLEI’s Australia-based water campaign to impoverished cities in the developing world.

March 2004. The ICLEI Executive Committee held its annual business meeting in Seoul as guests of the municipal government. We toured a reclaimed landfill (now a golf course, park, and stadium for the World Cup Soccer Games), a river restoration project, and a former water treatment plant converted to a public garden. ICLEI’s budget, policy, personnel and corporate matters were decided. Together with senior staff from ICLEI’s offices around the globe, we adopted a workplan to follow up on the Johannesburg Sustainability Summit.

April 2004. The US-Japan Foundation sponsored an exchange that sent Japanese officials and ICLEI staff to Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles. The theme was practical implementation of local climate protection strategies. I joined the group for their meeting with Puget Sound Clean Air and follow-up discussions.

May 2004. Paris hosted the merger meeting of two international municipal associations at the World Congress of Local Authorities. ICLEI organized a panel on urban sustainability. Our goal was to establish a strong voice for environmental principles as a core value of city government in the new association. I talked about Seattle’s experience with demand-side strategies, including tiered pricing, in managing energy consumption, solid waste, and water use. Together with ICLEI’s Secretary General, I continued networking with World Water Council about the municipal role in sustainable water and sanitation services.

August 2004. Stockholm’s World Water Week is a forum for global water issues, culminating in the King’s presentation of the Stockholm Water Prize at a banquet in the hall where Nobel prizes are given. Wow!! Seattle has great credibility in Stockholm, thanks to Seattle Public Utility’s reputation for sustainable water solutions. I spent intense hours networking on behalf of ICLEI’s role as capacity-builder for local governments, especially in the developing countries that are being targeted by international water sector leaders.

As a direct outcome of the 2004 Stockholm Water Week, ICLEI and the World Water Council agreed to collaborate on first steps of a project for local government outreach, setting the stage for the 4th World Water Forum, Mexico City 2006, which is billed as “Local Actions for a Global Challenge.” ICLEI made significant progress in getting global water sector leaders to understand the importance of (a) including local governments and (b) designing environmentally sustainable systems. A year or two ago, the whole emphasis was on privatization. Now it’s clear that whether water service is delivered by government or the private sector, the city officials are the ones responsible for well-managed contracts or municipal systems.

April 2005. CSD 13 was the 13th meeting of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, this time with a focus on water and sanitation in developing countries. In the context of the UN work on national and international policy, ICLEI organized a panel on the role of local government: “Good Local Water Governance: What is it?” I was invited to facilitate the panel discussion, which included African and Asian examples.

May 2005. The ICLEI Executive Committee held its annual business meeting in Sendai, Japan, as guests of the municipal government. Highlight of the week was a panel of Japanese mayors, including the mayor of Kyoto as well as Sendai, describing their commitment to meet Kyoto greenhouse-gas reduction targets in their own cities and the strategies they are adopting to make this happen.

June 2005. United Nations World Environment Day this year was actually a week-long celebration in San Francisco. The United Nations Environment Program [UNEP] Best Practices Network teamed up with ICLEI to present a panel on “Overcoming Financial and Technical Challenges to Sustainable Development in Practice by Local Government.” I provided a power point of the great work done by SeattleParks and Recreation in overcoming the technical challenges of applying LEED principles to open space design and landscaping projects.

Mayor GregNickels ramped up Seattle’s role in climate protection with his Kyoto initiative, and ICLEI was privileged to support his leadership at both the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Sundance Summit for Mayors. Mayor Nickels secured the support of more than 170 US mayors for the Kyoto targets. Following up on these commitments and providing technical support will be the prime focus of ICLEI USA in the coming year.

August 2005. Stockholm World Water Week 2005 focused on “soft solutions” – the institutional, legal and social solutions that must be crafted to solve water and waste-water challenges. While the discussions largely centered on national and transnational systems, I presented Seattle’s successful work at the metropolitan level to do the river-basin or watershed planning that is necessary to restore salmon runs. This parallels work ICLEI is doing along the LimpopoRiver in Africa to strengthen the role of local governments in integrated water resource management in the river basin.