Center for Innovative Diplomacy Archive

IRVINE, Calif.-This southern California suburb on Tuesday became the first city in the country to approve a sweeping ordinance aimed at sharply reducing the release of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting compounds into the atmosphere. 

The measure, stoutly opposed by a number of the city's high-technology and aerospace-related firms, on businesses to meet a series of stringent environmental requirements by next July 1 or face misdemeanor charges.

Ozone Depletion; the Greenhouse Effect.

How they're caused.

What they mean for your city.

What your city can do.

The North American Conference for a Stratospheric Protection Accord

July 21 -22, 1989The National Academies of Sciences and Engineering

University of California Irvine

In order to secure an environmentally sustainable future, the world's local governments must begin to restructure social and economic life at the local level.

The problems of solid waste, water pollution, transnational air pollution, climate change, stratospheric ozone

depletion, forest and soil loss, and environmental degradation in the developing world cannot adequately be addressed without a thorough mobilization at the local government

level.

By the end of the 20th century more than half of the world's population will live in urban areas. As the centers of industrialized life, cities are the major sources of garbage, sewage, chemical wastes, greenhouse gases and ozone depleting compounds. Standards for

dealing with these wastes can be set at the national and international government levels, but such standards can only be implemented in an effective and timely way with local government assistance. Globally, local governments are often in the best position to correct unsustainable land use, construction, transportation, energy, agriculture and waste management practices of modern life.

As local government leaders, we gather for a World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, as a first step in exchanging successful local strategies, in alliance with the United Nations for the development and implementation of a global environmental

agenda. We further call for the establishment of an International Secretariat for Local Environmental Initiatives to coordinate, assist and promote local government implementation of sound environmental policy.

SO EXASPERATED was one city in southern California with the general lack of action to protect the ozone layer that it has passed its own law restricting the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) within its 7,000-acre jurisdiction. From next summer on, businesses in Irvine that use ozone-depleting compounds must adapt their equipment to prevent the stuff from entering the atmosphere. Irvine is the first city to enact such a ban, though others, including Los Angeles, have placed restrictions on plastic food-packaging that contains CFCs. A mote in the global eye, maybe, but not unusual behaviour for Irvine.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 7 – Expressing impatience with the slowness of national governments, municipal leaders from around the world agreed today that local governments must take action on their own to address global warming and other broad environmental threats. 

After hearing a procession of speakers who warned the problems were too serious to wait, the mayors and other community leaders decided to form a new group, the International Council for Local Enviromental Initiatives, to provide mutual help in coping with common concerns like water pollution, toxic waste, deforestation and the greenhouse effect.

IRVINE, Calif., July 18 -The ranks of American states, counties and cities impatient with the pace of international efforts to protect the earth's ozone layer are swelling.  The latest action comes from conservative Orange County, where the City Council of Irvine voted 4 to 1 tonight to approve what Is believed to be the most far-reaching measure yet to control ozone-depleting chemicals. 

The Irvine ordinance will prohibit the use of nearly will chlorofluorocarbons, or CFC's, and related compounds In any industrial process, except in the manufacture of drugs and medical devices and when military specifications call for them. It will ban the sale and use of styrofoam food packaging, ifthe chemical compounds were used in their manufacture, and it will prohibit the use of building insulation containing the compounds.

In the chocking heat of a Washington summer, the U.S. Congress is going to battle over President George Bush’s clean-air proposals to cut toxic pollutants that cause smog and acid rain. 

But meanwhile, city officials from Canada and the U.S. – weary of lengthy national and international debates over urgent pollution issues – held their own conference this weekend to save the environment.

Cambridge, Massachusetts. Like a lot of folks, Jeb Brugmann wants city officials out of city hall. Unlike most, he'd like to see them visiting foreign governments, setting up trade agreements, sister city projects and cultural exchange programs.

"Over a thousand U.S. cities are deeply involved in world affairs issues," Brugmann says. And while some of those activities-divestment from firms doing business in South Africa and the shipment of development aid to Central American villages--might seem distinctly partisan, Brugmann insists there's a payoff. "Getting city governments involved in international affairs in general can mean big dividends for both local governments and international businesses, in general."

On September 5-8, 1990 local government officials from 43 nations gathered at the United Nations in New York to establish an international agency of local government called the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (Local Initiatives).  With support from local government organizations such as the national league of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors and their worldwide counterparts, Local Initiatives is governed by an Executive Committee of local government and environmental experts from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, ivory Coast, the United Kingdom, Norway, Finland, the Soviet Union, Turkey India, The Philippines, Australia, and elsewhere.  The agency is currently developing formal affiliations with the United Nations and the world’s preeminent organization of local governments, the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA).

A two-day conference in Irvine exploringdepletion of the Earth's ozone layerended Saturday with establishment of thefirst nationwide group of elected officialsaimed at eliminating substances harmful tothe atmosphere.

Representatives of two dozen U.S. andCanadian cities said creation of the NorthAmerican Congress of Local Governmentsfor a Stratospheric Protection Accord represents a new and potentially sweepingmovement in the campaign to stop depletion of the ozone layer.