Bay Area group announces grant at Global Warming Summit

Photo(s) by Luke Thomas

By Brent Begin, Bay City News Service

November 11, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - A Bay Area ecological group announced a $3 million grant Friday in San Francisco to fund local climate protection projects and programs.

The announcement came at the Climate Protection Summit, a gathering of policymakers intent on reversing pollution trends and global warming.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District, a regional agency comprised of mayors, supervisors and other political figures from seven Bay Area counties, organized the event and gathered the $3 million for the grant.

Former Vice President Al Gore was the keynote speaker at the event but his speech was not open to the media. In a statement he said that swift action now would make a big difference in protecting the global climate.

"The good news is that we can slow and reverse the trend of global warming if we take action now and we spread the word," Gore said. "Here we have a public agency taking the lead and providing the incentives, and we have the enthusiastic participation of private business and community-based nonprofit organizations that are working together, sharing ideas and implementing exciting solutions."

The summit comes at a time when San Francisco has played host to other environmental summits. In July, British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to discuss initiatives to fight global warming.

Newsom, who was unable to attend the summit, announced Friday that San Francisco was the first city in the country to certify its greenhouse emissions with the California Climate Action Registry, a nonprofit group tracking the success and failure of ecological change.

"The enormity of the of the danger means it's time for all cities to take action locally, and not follow Washington in denial," Newsom said in a statement.

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