2 parties, Utah warm to climate issues

SUNDANCE — It's mostly a Democrat's playground here at the three-day mayoral global warming conference known as the Sundance Summit.

While organizers and attendees have stressed that climate change is a bipartisan issue, the two Republicans among 45 mayors attending the summit seem a bit out of place.

"I'm sure that there will be some who will be surprised to find out that there are Republicans here," GOP Mayor Scott Avedisian of Warwick, R.I., said.

After all, the big names present — former Vice President Al Gore, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson — are all Democrats.

Given the politics, Utah — which according to presidential election tallies is the most Republican state in the union — isn't likely to be considered a global-warming hot spot.

But a recent poll shows Utahns are sold on climate change.

The May poll found that 73 percent of Utahns think temperatures on Earth have been rising in recent years. And most of those who do believe in a hotter planet pin the problem on fossil fuels, according to a Deseret Morning News/KSL TV poll conducted by Dan Jones & Associates in May. The statewide poll surveyed 624 people and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

Even among Utah Republicans, 65 percent said the Earth is getting hotter.

Robert Redford, who along with Anderson and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives organized the Sundance Summit, stressed that global warming has to move beyond politics.

"The public is fed up with the bickering. They've had it with the political bickering," he said. "This issue is way beyond being treated like a political football."

Charlotte Mayor Patrick McCrory, the other Republican mayor at the summit, said he sees much political hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle when it comes to climate change. The left, for instance, doesn't talk much about nuclear power as a clean energy alternative to fossil fuels. The right, in turn, often shies away from funding mass transit and looks to build more roads.

"This is where I agree with Robert Redford," McCrory said. "I think it's got to go back to the grass roots."

In the minds of McCrory and many at the summit, local leaders and citizens will be the ones making changes that will reduce the warming effect that burning fossil fuels has on the environment.

Local leaders in Austin, Texas, for instance, are pursuing a campaign to get 50 cities to place advance orders for prototype "plug-in" hybrid cars, which use even less gasoline than traditional hybrids. The idea is to generate so much early demand for the cars that manufacturers will have no choice but to produce them in mass.