Lord Mayor to lead world energy cities

Lord Mayor of the City of Perth Lisa Scaffidi has been elected President of the influential World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP).The WECP is a grouping of 15 cities whose economies are strongly linked to the energy and resource industries.

Ms Scaffidi said the WECP played an important role by providing linkages between the major energy cities, not only by exchanging information which supported the energy industry, but increasingly in the environmental field as well.

“It is an honour to be elected to the presidency, which I see as recognition of Perth’s importance in the global energy industry,” the Lord Mayor said.

“There is no doubt that Western Australia is at the forefront of the resources and energy sector, including the infrastructure and services industries that are such an important part of it.”

Lord Mayor of the City of Perth, Lisa Scaffidi

Ms Scaffidi said she accepted the presidency at an important time for the energy industry, with the current focus on climate control and with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen only two months away.

“The WECP this week achieved an important milestone with the mayors of nine international cities signing an accord that commits to bold greenhouse gas reduction targets,” Ms Scaffidi said.

“The Calgary Climate Change Accord calls for participating cities to pursue policies, plans and operations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated by their activities by a minimum percentage of 20 per cent by 2020, with a further minimum reduction of 80 per cent by 2050, using 2005 levels as a baseline.

“The City of Perth is keen to commit to partnerships and co-operative arrangements that will encourage and lead to change in the global community.

“Already the City of Perth, as a local government authority, has been active in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions with initiatives such as sourcing 25 per cent of its power requirements from accredited ‘green’ energy sources, planting trees to help offset carbon emissions from vehicles using its carparks and using solar energy for its parking ticket machines.”

In addition to Perth, other cities that signed the Calgary Climate Change Accord of the WECP Cities were Calgary, Canada; Houston, USA; Port Harcourt, Nigeria; Stavanger, Norway; San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago; Aberdeen, U.K.; Halifax, Canada and St. John’s, Canada.