Under Marty’s leadership, Boston is consistently recognized as a climate champion. As a coastal city, climate change presents an acute threat to the health, safety, and jobs of today’s Bostonians and tomorrow’s. However, in a city of science and progress like ours, climate action is not only a responsibility but also an opportunity: to create good, green jobs; to save money through energy efficiency; and to develop the technologies and solutions of the future. So as mayor, Marty has made climate action a top priority. In the process, he has made Boston a national and global leader. Each year of Marty’s tenure, Boston has been ranked among the top two cities in the country for energy efficiency by the American Council on an Energy Efficient Economy.

Marty’s Record

  • Protecting our environment. Boston’s Climate Action Plan is a roadmap for reducing emissions, saving energy and money across all sectors, with the ultimate goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
  • Protecting Boston’s neighborhoods. Climate Ready Boston shows how rising sea levels, heat, precipitation and other impacts of climate change will likely affect Boston, and guides neighborhoods on building a resilient future.
  • National and global leadership.
    •  Mayor Walsh is a steering committee member and North American Co-Chair of the C40 Climate Cities, an international network of cities taking bold climate action. C40 Cities represents 700+ million citizens and one quarter of the global economy.
    •  Mayor Walsh is co-chair of Climate Mayors — a bipartisan coalition of 466 cities representing 74+ million Americans in 48 states.
    •  In 2017, Boston led cities nationwide in upholding our nation’s commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, including publishing climate data online that had been scrubbed from the EPA’s website.
  • Unparalleled local engagement. At the Paris climate conference in 2015, Boston beat out cities around the world to win the C40 award for Smart Cities and Smart Community Engagement.

Marty’s Plan

  • Raising the bar. Mayor Walsh recently accelerated the original carbon reduction goals of Boston’s Climate Action Plan, in order to become carbon neutral by 2050.
  • Protecting our neighborhoods. Implement Climate Ready Boston solutions citywide with a special focus on prioritizing socially vulnerable neighborhoods.
  • Creating a cleaner, greener city. Implement Boston’s Zero Waste Plan, to reduce our city’s environmental impact while expanding social equity goals.
  • Taking our energy efficiency leadership to a new level through energy performance contracting. Marty will continue the success of Renew Boston Trust, a program to manage energy retrofits of large public buildings that are self-financed by future savings.
  • Keeping climate change and climate action at the forefront and continuing to advocate for these issues locally and nationally.