Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie arrives in Copenhagen, Denmark today where he will represent the capital city and local governments throughout the country as world leaders talk about global climate change.
He says at the end of the day it’s local governments that are going to have to implement and share strategies and they’re all working together to try to do different things. Cownie says local officials have already been taking on the issue. “We’re the ones that have been doing something, especially in the United States up ‘till now while they’ve been trying to figure out in Washington what they can do and what the law says they can do,” Cownie says.
Cownie says a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring the federal government to monitor greenhouse gases as a pollutant will probably create positive changes in the law. However, he says an international agreement is important because climate change is a worldwide problem.