SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Shepherdstown has become the only municipality
in coal-producing West Virginia to support a global greenhouse gas
agreement.

Town Council voted Tuesday to sign on to the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection
Agreement, which asks state and federal governments to uphold the standards
of the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 35 industrial nations to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

“We feel it’s very important to try and meet the Kyoto protocols,”
Shepherdstown Councilman Frank Salzano said Thursday.

“We have broad support among the community and the council.”

The United States and Australia are the only major industrialized countries
to reject the Kyoto Protocol.

As of Wednesday, 330 mayors across the country had signed on to the U.S.
Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement.

The agreement commits local governments to meet or beat Kyoto Protocol
targets in their own communities through urban forest reforestation,
land-use policies aimed at curbing sprawl and other initiatives. It also
states that local governments will continue to urge state and federal
legislators to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels is the biggest
of the greenhouse gases. West Virginia is the second largest coal producing
state in the nation.

Courtesy of The Associated Press