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"Hold us accountable," says San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to the Sierra Club on Friday morning. "Don't just listen to our rhetoric."
Photo by John Byrne Barry

by John Byrne Barry
Plenary Session
Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco

- The full transcript of the speech is available.

Calling San Francisco both a city of “dreamers and doers” as well as “49 square miles surrounded by reality,” Mayor Gavin Newsom welcomed the several thousand Sierra Summit participants and shared his vision of how cities can make a difference. 

In June, as part of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Newsom welcomed mayors from all over the world to San Francisco to gather and discuss ways cities can lead the way towards a more sustainable planet.

“Cities consume 75 percent of the world’s natural resources,” Newsom said, despite taking up such a small percentage of the land mass. So there’s plenty that cities can do, he said. And that San Francisco is already doing. 

San Francisco, he said, is committed to reducing global warming emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. The city is home to the largest municipally owned solar project in the world – right here on the top of Moscone Center, where the Summit is happening. And San Francisco already diverts 67 percent of its waste.

“Hold us accountable,” he concluded. “Don’t just listen to our rhetoric. There’s so much more that we can do.”

-- 09/09/2005 Fri
2pm