Earlier this month, former liberal New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg awarded San Antonio and Austin as winners of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ American Cities Climate Challenge. Despite touting that the cities would receive $2.5 million each to meet carbon reduction goals, the City of Austin’s Climate Program Manager Zach Baumer recently explained that the cities were not actually receiving money for the award:
“This program is more like a partnership and a support network … it’s not a grant, it’s not money that the city is going to receive.”
Despite not receiving any funds from the award, the cities are still creating climate action plans with unrealistic goals that have been described as “difficult” to implement that will now rely on taxpayer funds.
