The Cardinal Rules for Climate Action Plans

"[F]or climate-change plans to work, the actions you take have to be local, tailored to the particular needs of each city," explains Missy Stults in the article. "One particular strength of urban, as opposed to national or even state climate-change policy, particularly in a country as vast as America, is that cities are different; what works in one may not in another."

"Portland's plan, for instance, calls for 90% of its citizens to be able to walk or bicycle 'to meet all basic, daily non-work needs' by 2030: a laudable and achievable goal there, but far more difficult in sprawling cities such as Los Angeles or Houston. New York's PlaNYC pays more attention to wetlands and coastal issues than CCAP does, because New York has more coastline and waterways than Chicago."