LOS ANGELES – LA 2024 bid leaders today hailed Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s latest initiatives for energy efficiency and clean air as further boosting the committee’s commitment to delivering the Greenest Games in history, with a lasting legacy for the Olympic Movement.
The bold new initiatives cap a remarkable year of climate change action in L.A, with the latest measures set to improve energy and water efficiency in buildings and to bring more clean energy vehicles to disadvantaged communities. Garcetti’s new initiatives give LA 2024 further confidence that they will be able to achieve the sustainability goals set out in Olympic Agenda 2020.
The first initiative, the Existing Building Energy and Water Efficiency ordinance, represents significant progress in Garcetti’s pledge to sharply reduce the carbon footprint of the city’s buildings. The second, a pilot program to bring electric vehicle sharing to disadvantaged communities, is the first of its kind in the country. The new measures are further evidence of the city’s leadership and innovation in climate change action.
LA 2024 chairman Casey Wasserman, said: “The LA 2024 team would like to commend Mayor Garcetti and the City of Los Angeles on a remarkable year of action against climate change. Los Angeles’ environmental innovation and commitment to sustainability is paramount to helping us deliver the Greenest Games in history. The Mayor’s latest initiatives are further reassurance to the Olympic family that LA 2024 would be a Games-changer when it comes to environmental sustainability.”
Discussing the new initiatives Mayor Garcetti said: “Reducing L.A.’s carbon footprint means looking at all angles, and buildings are the single greatest source of greenhouse gases in Los Angeles — which is why I set targets in my Sustainable City pLAn to reduce energy use in existing buildings by 14% by 2025 and 30% by 2030.”
Mayor Garcetti’s actions close a historic year for clean energy in Los Angeles, including the overwhelming passage of transportation Measure M; new records in solar panel and electric vehicle charger installations; the “Clean Up Green Up” ordinance, a novel law to protect communities at high risk from pollution; the launch of the Metro Bike Share Downtown Pilot; and the opening of the La Kretz Innovation Campus, home of L.A. Cleantech Incubator.
In an address last month to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group in Mexico City, Mayor Garcetti committed L.A. to being among the first cities to pursue every possible strategy for doing its part to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C — the scientifically accepted threshold for a dangerous level of planetary warming — as laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement. Mayor Garcetti has also led an open letter with 47 other U.S. mayors to President-elect Trump, urging him to tackle the climate crisis.
