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Cities Are Scolding Countries at UN Climate Conference To Cut Emissions (vice.com)
A reader shares a report: An alliance of major cities including New York, Toronto, and London challenged nation states attending the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany this week "to kick dirty carbon to the curb" and immediately "commit and work straightaway towards carbon neutrality, 100 percent renewable energy, zero-waste and zero-carbon." The Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance is a new collaboration of 20 international cities (other members include Washington DC, San Francisco, Oslo, and Sydney). All are striving for carbon neutrality and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050. "Dirty fuels and climate disruption are killing and displacing millions of citizens around the world," the Alliance stated in a strongly-worded letter sent to every country's delegation at climate talks, known as COP 23. "Cities are on the frontline of climate impacts. We see the urgency of climate action and need nation-states to be as committed as we are," Johanna Partin, the director of the Alliance and former advisor to the mayor of San Francisco, told Motherboard by phone.
Coal plants are being discontinued. As grids become more efficient, switching to electric cars becomes even better. As for rare earth batteries, rare earths despite their name are not that rare https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rare-earth-elements-not-rare-just-playing-hard-to-get-38812856/ and the technology to extract them has been getting massively better in the last few years. We've also just barely started recycling rare earth components- until recently there wasn't any economic incentive to do so. If components with them become more common, the amount of recycling will go up. As is usually the case with environmental problems, the solution will not be simply changes in personal behavior, or government regulation, or market incentives but a natural combination of all three. And, with the notable exception of the current US Presidential administration, most of the world is behind it.