Boston to Host 2017 US-China Climate Leaders Summit

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh

BOSTON—In recognition of the city’s leadership in climate change and carbon emissions reduction, the City of Boston will play host to the 2017 US-China Climate Leaders Summit. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced in Beijing, China on Tuesday the city’s selection for the 2017 summit that is expected to bring thousands of environmental leaders from across the globe to Boston. Firm details on when and where the summit will be held were not released. In a joint announcement from Beijing, where the second US China Climate Leaders Summit is being staged, Kerry and Walsh stated that the summit will be held sometime during the summer of 2017. The third summit will look to further strengthen the US-China bilateral relationship on climate change, as well as the two countries’ shared commitment to climate action following the successful Paris Agreement reached in 2015. The first summit occurred in September 2015 in Los Angeles and included a keynote address by Vice President Joseph Biden and China’s State Councilor Yang Jiechi as well as the signing by 24 state and local leaders of a first-of-its-kind “US-China Climate Leaders Declaration.” The most notable feature of the declaration was a commitment by major Chinese cities to peak CO2 emissions earlier than China’s national goal of 2030. “I am honored to announce that Boston will build on our global climate leadership to host next year’s U.S.-China Climate Leaders Summit,” said Mayor Walsh. “There is no more pressing, or defining, global challenge than climate change. We know we must be making investments now to create a more sustainable future for the world we share. I look forward to continuing these substantive, challenging conversations in Boston.” Secretary of State Kerry, in a speech at the Beijing International Hotel, announced Boston’s selection for the third summit. He related, “Boston is a coastal city that understands the threat of rising sea levels and extreme weather and has already taken ambitious steps in order to reduce emissions and mitigate the harmful effects of climate change.” In his appearance with Chinese State Councilor Jiechi, Kerry said that many cities worldwide face dangers due to climate change. He noted that several weeks ago, the City of Houston was battered with 17 inches of rain in just five hours that caused an estimated half a billion dollars in damage. “Fully 90% of major cities—90%—are situated along inland or coastal waterways, making them particularly at risk for storm surges and for sea level rise,” Kerry said. “There are cities today in parts of the world that are going to have trouble existing unless things change—certainly trouble functioning.” He later said that one answer to climate change is clean energy and that “we’re just not going to get where we need to go unless we move towards—and rapidly—towards a low-carbon global clean energy economy.” Earlier this year, Mayor Walsh joined the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Steering Committee. The committee is the governing body that provides strategic direction for a network of cities that are preparing for and helping prevent climate change. Mayor Walsh is currently representing all North American cities on the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group as vice-chair along with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. At Tuesday’s session in Beijing, the mayor announced that the Chinese cities of Dalian and Chengdu had joined C40. Boston has taken a host of steps in response to climate change in the past two years including the release of the updated “Greenovate Climate Action,” which sets a plan to achieve Boston’s greenhouse gas reduction goals of 25% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.