Billionaire Michael Bloomberg has written a blueprint for how to defy Trump and uphold the Paris Agreement

pulse

June 5, 2017 6:22 PM

In their 2016 book, "Climate of Hope," Michael Bloomberg and former Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope lay out how cities can address climate change.

On June 1, Donald Trump announced that the US will exit the Paris Agreement, an international effort aimed at curbing climate change by reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

The move upset many states, climate scientists, and CEOs. But billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a vocal supporter of climate change mitigation, isn't phased.

To make up some of the $2 billion in lost funds toward climate action programs, the former New York City mayor's charitable organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, is giving $15 million over the next two years to

Bloomberg and Pope offer small actions that companies and local governments can take toward boosting clean energy and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. For example, building more bike lanes has been shown to reduce CO2 levels (since it encourages people to drive less often). Constructing public transit near housing has a similar effect.

Cities with large buildings that mandate energy-efficient upgrades to heating and cooling systems can minimize their carbon footprints and save on energy, Bloomberg says in the book. New York City's green building projects, for instance, are projected to lower greenhouse-gas emissions by 2.7 million tons — about the , according to CityLab.

Bloomberg and Pope also note that more investment in natural ecosystems can mitigate climate change.

There is also an increasing amount of scientific research into machines that can capture CO2 even after it's in the air. "Whether these pilots can, in a near future, be scaled at an affordable level is uncertain, but it seems only prudent to support the needed research to explore them," Bloomberg and Pope write.

Made up of 195 nations as of June 2017, the Paris Agreement aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to fight rising global temperatures. As

About 30 major US cities have vowed to uphold the Paris Agreement, despite the planned US withdrawal in late 2019. Pittsburgh recently announced that the city plans to transition to

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