President Bush wouldn't sign the Kyoto Protocol, but Mayor Rick Gray will.

At a ceremony Tuesday afternoon, Gray, the Lancaster City mayor, will pledge the city to working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"The phrase 'Think globally, act locally' comes to mind," Gray said Friday when asked about the agreement.

"We all can do our part — right down to us as individuals. It's the City of Lancaster doing its part," the mayor said.

With Gray's signature, Lancaster City becomes the first municipality in the county to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. It joins 15 other municipalities in Pennsylvania and 766 across the country.

Nearby cities of York, Reading, Allentown, and Oxford have already committed to the agreement.

Some cities, according to the Web site of the sponsoring Sierra Club, have taken steps such as replacing traffic signals with electricity-saving light emitting diode bulbs, or LEDs.

Lancaster is now in the process of replacing its traffic signals and cross-walk lights with LEDs. Officials are also looking at adding electric vehicles to the city's fleet.

And some city businesses are considering installing "green" roofs, roofs topped with grass or some other vegetation. Green roofs reduce the rain water that would otherwise go through the city sewer system and vegetation-reducing carbon dioxide in the air.

Under the agreement, the city is committing to:

• Meeting or beating the targets set in the Kyoto Protocol, that is a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by the year 2012.

• Urging the state and federal government to enact policies and programs in which the United States would meet that target.

• Urging Congress to pass legislation establishing a national emission-trading system.

The push for the nation's mayors to reduce emissions started in 2005 when Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels signed a commitment to meet the Kyoto target when U.S. officials refused to do so.

The international agreement was drafted at a summit in Kyoto, Japan. More than 140 nations have signed it. The United States participated in the summit but federal officials refused to ratify the agreement.

Kyoto opponents contend the agreement unfairly burdens the economies of industrialized nations over developing nations.

Proponents say that failing to limit pollution is causing the Earth to warm beneath a shroud of gas in the upper atmosphere. The result is melting glaciers, rising sea levels, extreme weather patterns and the extinction of species.

A public signing ceremony for the agreement will be at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, in Binns Park, in the 100 block of North Queen Street.

CONTACT US: bharris@LNPnews.com or 481-6022