Bloomberg and Sierra Club Join Forces to Slow Coal

Speaking on the deck of a boat idling near a coal-fired power plant in Alexandria, Va., Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a $5 million coal-fighting donation. Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSpeaking on the deck of a boat idling near a coal-fired power plant in Alexandria, Va., Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a $50 million coal-fighting donation.
Green: Politics

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York announced on Thursday that his main charitable organization would donate $50 million over four years to the Sierra Club’s campaign to shut down coal plants and move the United States toward cleaner sources of energy.

Appearing with the Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, near a coal plant in Alexandria, Va., Mr. Bloomberg said he hoped that his gift would help the environmental group retire as many as a third of the nation’s oldest coal-fired power plants by 2020. Coal provides nearly half of the nation’s electricity but is also responsible for roughly a third of the country’s output of carbon dioxide and other climate-altering greenhouse gases, as well as millions of tons a year of pollutants that damage human health and the environment.

“If we are going to get serious about reducing our carbon footprint in the United States, we have to get serious about coal,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement. “Coal is a self-inflicted public health risk, polluting the air we breathe, adding mercury to our water and the leading cause of climate disruption.”

The gift to the Sierra Club is the second major climate change-related contribution from Bloomberg Philanthropies this year. In the spring, Mr. Bloomberg pledged nearly $20 million over three years to C40, a group of cities around the world engaged in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and responding to the growing effects of a warming planet. Mr. Bloomberg currently chairs the organization.

The recipient of the mayor’s latest largess, the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, claims to have stopped more than 150 new coal-fired power plants in recent years through litigation and local action. Mr. Bloomberg’s $50 million represents a third of the campaign’s projected $150 million four-year budget, the Sierra Club said.

The campaign’s goal is to cut electricity production from coal by 30 percent by 2020 and to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent. The new money will be used to expand the club’s campaign to 45 states from the current 15 and increase the member base to 2.4 million from 1.4 million, the group said.

Mr. Brune of the Sierra Club said the mayor’s gift was a “game changer” in the fight against coal. He said that private citizens and organizations like Bloomberg Philanthropies were needed to bridge the chasm left by inaction by political leaders in the United States and around the world.

“Coal relentlessly dirties our water, air and lungs -– and fixing the problem cannot be left to Washington,” he said. “Nor can coal’s contributions to climate disruption be left to international bodies. Mike Bloomberg’s strong clean-air agenda as mayor of New York, and his chairmanship of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, shows that he understands that actions are being taken, and that the most significant ongoing successes will be won city by city, by dedicated people across America.”