Denver to go 100% renewable by 2030

Denver

From EcoWatch:

Denver became the 73rd city in the U.S. to commit to 100 percent renewable energy when Mayor Michael Hancock announced the goal in his State of the City speech Monday, The Denver Post reported.

The commitment is part of the city's larger 80×50 Climate Action Plan unveiled by Hancock Tuesday, which seeks to reduce Denver's greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2050.

"Climate change threatens our people directly, putting our health, environment and economy—our very way of life—at risk," Hancock said, as reported by The Denver Post.

The plan calls for all municipal facilities to source their electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2025 and for the city's entire electric grid to go renewable by 2030.

Denver first made its commitment to reducing emissions 80 percent of 2005 levels by 2050 in its 2015 Climate Action Plan. The current plan is the result of almost two years of discussion with experts and community stakeholders, Hancock wrote in a letter introducing the full text of the plan.

Hancock said that cities had a particular responsibility to act on climate change.

"Though cities account for only two percent of land globally, they are responsible for more than 70 percent of carbon emissions," he wrote.

[Read more here]

This pattern of municipalities setting ambitious renewable energy targets is repeated across the world.   And in the USA, even though at Federal level the government is doing the best it can to bring back coal,  states and municipalities are working hard for a greener future.  Thanks to a combination of falling costs and increasing evidence that global warming is happening and getting worse, the push to de-carbonise our economies just keeps getting stronger.