The City of Sunnyvale is vying for up to $5 million through the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ 2017 Mayors Challenge to fund programs to reduce carbon emissions.
The 2017 Challenge is a nationwide ideas competition for cities in the US, according to a press release of Bloomberg Philanthropies. Sunnyvale’s proposal, which aims to lessen greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, was submitted Oct. 20.
The innovation funds of $100,000 or prizes of either $1 million or $5 million, if awarded to Sunnyvale, could accelerate the implementation of activities to try to help slow climate change. This would also be a step towards achieving the state’s 2030 and 2050 goals for reducing emissions.
Nupur Hiremath, Sunnyvale’s sustainability coordinator, said in an interview that climate change is one of the top seven priorities of Sunnyvale for the current fiscal year.
The additional funding from Bloomberg would allow the City “to do more and faster” and implement activities towards climate action alongside existing initiatives, Hiremath said. “Anything we can put in place now to ensure our emissions are constantly decreasing to get to an 80 percent reduction by 2050 is worth it.”
The city is also working towards reducing transportation emissions and energy-related emissions by revisiting their climate action plan.
Other cities in the County of Santa Clara participating in this year’s Challenge are Campbell, Cupertino, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto and San Jose.
