KYOTO -- Sharing a growing sense of crisis over climate change internationally, mayors and municipal officials met Friday in Kyoto to discuss how their local governments can cooperate to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"In order to save the Earth, local leaders must make citizens aware of the need to fundamentally alter our social and economic systems right now," Kyoto Mayor Yorikane Masumoto said in his opening remarks to the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change. "Since the Kyoto Protocol went into effect two years ago, climatologists have amassed even more evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are a major cause of global warming."
About 60 local government heads from two dozen countries are taking part in the three-day conference.