Kick the Habit: A UN Guide to Climate Neutrality

technologies. A consortium being developed by C40’s partner, the Clin- ton Climate Initiative, will form partnerships with vendors that will lead to lower production and delivery costs and therefore lower prices. Key product categories will include building materials, systems, and controls; traffic and street lighting; clean buses and waste disposal trucks; and waste-to-energy systems. ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) runs a campaign called Cities for Climate Protection (CCP ). It helps cities adopt policies and implement quantifiable measures to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and enhance urban liveability and sustainability. More than 800 local governments participate in the CCP, integrating climate change miti- gation into their decision-making processes. Five milestones help local gov- ernments to understand how municipal decisions affect energy use and how these decisions can be used to mitigate global climate change while improving the community’s quality of life. Like the generic environmen- tal management system (EMS) approach, the CCP methodology provides a simple, standardized way of acting to reduce GHGs emissions and moni- toring, measuring, and reporting performance. Decisions taken at country level can influence and motivate actors rang- ing from the international community to individuals and have a profound effect on GHG emissions and patterns of consumption and production. Whereas cities are in a better position to motivate people and unlock their enthusiasm, countries have the power to induce fundamental changes. One way of motivating people is by offering them ways to save money, yet not all governments have exploited the potential of the taxation system to change behaviour to greener patterns. Governments can, for example, introduce carbon taxes on the use of fossil fuels. They can impose taxes on the extrac- tion and production of minerals, energy and timber and structure them to support more climate-friendly practices. Specific taxes are possible on technologies and products which cause significant environmental damage. Waste disposal, pollution and hazardous wastes can also be taxed. To com- pensate taxpayers for these new impositions governments can lower other charges, for instance income and sales taxes, and those on property and COUNTRIES

KICK THE HABIT THE CYCLE – REDUCE

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