Senior Communications and Policy Advisor for Mayor Nickels, Martin McOmber, said that overall Seattle has made a very strong start. Mayor Nickels launched the Seattle Climate Action Plan last fall which is the cornerstone to implementing the action steps stipulated in the Mayor's Agreement. Progress will be reviewed every two years.

Seattle has already cut its emissions by 60 percent from 1990 levels and for the second year in a row Seattle has achieved zero net greenhouse gas emissions.

"It was not an easy issue to address but we made great strides in the first year. We're making major new investments to support these efforts, and creating rezoning proposals to encourage more density in our downtown area," McOmber said. "We will be widening streets and roads to create more bike lanes and we're building a modern light rail system that will be ready in the next couple of years."

Salem Mayor Janet Taylor isn't impressed. She charges that despite Mayor Nickels' efforts, Seattle is not realizing its goals in addressing climate change locally.

"That Mayor's Agreement frankly is a political document. The Mayor of Seattle needed to do something that made him look like this big environmentalist," she said. "But if they can't implement it and a small city like Salem is already doing so much, I just want to stand up, wave a flag, and say, `Down with your Mayor's Climate Agreement. It should be the Salem Climate Agreement.'"

One year ago City Councilor Rick Stucky, for the second time, introduced a resolution requiring Salem to adopt the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. For the second time it was voted down.

At the same meeting, Councilor Dan Clem introduced a resolution that called for City staff to study ways in which Salem could reduce city waste, emissions and energy consumption. It called for adopting measures similar to the 12 action steps that make up the Mayor's Climate Agreement.

Clem calls the resolution the "Salem Environmental Action Plan" and said that City Manager Bob Wells intends to bring information based on this study before the Council when it resumes work in August.

Councilor Stucky, who has since retired, said that despite not passing his resolution, the Council took steps appropriate for this community.

In the year since, climate change has been given a lot of attention in the press and media. The international community and most of the world's most prominent scientists have re-emphasized the growing threats of climate change. Al Gore's movie and book, "An Inconvenient Truth," have been released, and his global concert to bring attention to the issue took place in July.

Salem achieved recognition as the first state capitol in the country to win a "Green Power Award" from the Environmental Protection Agency in December because more than two percent of power consumed within city limits comes from renewable resources.

Mayor Taylor is very proud of this accomplishment.

"We already have many of those things [the 12 action steps in the Mayor's Agreement] that we are doing and we've expanded them even more."

She cites the City's move to require that the entire municipal fleet of diesel vehicles use only biofuel, the banning of most pesticides from City parks, and the City's approval of a new and more stringent tree ordinance, as steps taken by the City to address climate change. Recently the Council voted to build public facilities according to "green building" standards.

Not all would agree, however, that Salem has taken significant action to address the issue locally.

Outgoing Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, who has traveled throughout Oregon in the last year giving presentations based on Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth," became passionate when asked about Salem's approach to dealing with climate change and its refusal to adopt the Mayor's Agreement.

"You're burying your head in the sand by not facing this issue head-on," Bradbury said. "I'm convinced the future of our economy will go to those who control our carbon output. Salem's approach is the wrong economic strategy. I want to emphasize that's not getting us ready for the future."

For McOmber, Seattle's biggest achievement is something more intangible.

"What we are most proud of is the fact that we have fundamentally changed the debate in this country regarding climate change."