While they had signed onto ICLEI several years ago, the City of Norfolk finally made their commitment to curbing carbon emissions official, pledging as a three-some tag team along with Tacoma, Washington and Kitakyushu, Japan.

The Joint Declaration reads as follows:

“In 1959, when our Cities entered into sister-city partnerships, most industrial nations - including the U.S. and Japan - were experiencing rapid economic development that brought great prosperity to both nations. At the same time, it also brought a new problem: environmental pollution. This era was also a time of overcoming this new situation.

50 years have passed since then and we now face a new problem, climate change, which affects everyone and in turn, everyone helps to cause. To overcome this problem, we need to change our culture/values and make continued efforts over a long period of time.

In response to this problem, our Cities will cross national barriers to work together to create low-carbon societies while observing the following points in order to appeal our efforts to the rest of the world.

- Each City will carry out activities adapted to their region and achieve a role leading their region toward the realization of a low-carbon society.
- On top of the cultural exchange we have accomplished thus far, we will further deepen our partnership through the exchange of information and opinions regarding climate change.
- The three Cities will work together to transmit information globally regarding each City’s efforts toward the realization of a low-carbon society.”

(Photo above found here within VML’s Town & City magazine.)