Even though U.S. President Bush has withdrawn the U.S. from the Kyoto treaty on climate change, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell (D) and four City Council members announced yesterday that Seattle would easily meet what would have been the greenhouse-gas-reduction target for the U.S. under Kyoto. The city promised to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels and to try to reduce them by 20 percent. Seattle City Light, the city-owned utility, put the cost of the program at $3 million a year — a tiny portion of its $500 million annual budget. (Before feelings of happiness set in, recall that most of Seattle’s electricity comes from emissions-free, salmon-killing hydropower dams.) [Editor’s note: Whoops, read this clarification. Next time, we won’t read the original Reuters story so closely.]
