Though emissions continue to climb to dangerous new highs, the head of the UN climate change treaty secretariat, Christiana Figueres, put a brave face on the stalled negotiations when she tweeted that the Doha talks had “opened a gateway to greater ambition and action on climate change.” Next month she’ll have an easier task: as a jury member for the Earth Hour City Challenge, she’ll help choose national Earth Hour city champions for six countries, including a Canadian victor. And then in March the global Earth Hour City champion will be announced. With five B.C. cities among the nine Canadian cities in the contest, we have a good shot at that title, too.

B.C.’s leadership on climate change deserves the global audience that the climate change talks receive. Dubbed the “best climate policy in the world” in a New York Times Op-Ed this past June, our carbon tax is working. Greenhouse gas emissions are down, people are choosing to drive less and carbon-tax dollars are filling the provincial coffers. Our local governments are part of the plan, and are matching the province’s legislated precedent-setting targets for greenhouse gas reductions.

The Earth Hour City Challenge can help spread this good news story. The contest is based on the wildly popular Earth Hour, celebrated in 152 countries last year. Earth Hour is simple: When you turn out your lights for an hour, you take a symbolic action that signals a commitment to less energy use and shows your climate change consciousness.

With more than 70 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions generated by cities, the Earth Hour City Challenge is designed to mobilize action and support from cities in the global transition toward a climate-friendly future.

This year, cities in six countries: Canada, the U.S., Sweden, India, Italy and Norway, are competing to move “beyond the hour” by submitting ambitious, holistic, inspiring and credible plans for low carbon development and showing plans to dramatically increase the renewable energy use to an international expert jury.

B.C.’s cities are at the forefront of this “emerald city” revolution, as shown by the actions of this year’s five Earth Hour City contestants from B.C. From the Solar Colwood program targeting 1,000 energy retrofits for average homes, to the City of North Vancouver’s higher energy efficiency zoning bylaw and carbon fund, to Surrey’s LEED Gold certified city hall and new geothermal-based district energy system; we have a lot to show the world.

Vancouver can lay claim not only to being one of the first cities to target climate change at the local level back in 1990 with the prescient “Clouds of Change” report but also to setting the audacious goal to be the greenest city in the world by 2020.

Richmond has shown it has the chops by establishing a new district energy system which will service 3,100 residential units, the first of many planned systems.

In January, the three national finalists for the title of Canada’s Earth Hour City Champion will be chosen. B.C.’s contestants will be up against Fredericton, Waterloo, Edmonton and Sudbury.

And then the fun part for Figueres and her high-profile fellow jurists, including Mexico City’s environment minister, the World Bank’s lead urban adviser, the head of Accenture’s cities unit, and several more climate change luminaries.

Can action at the local level spur significant national action?

Though this latest round of climate treaty talks did not produce the strong binding global rules we desperately need, there is still room for optimism here in beautiful B.C.