Mayor David Miller unveiled a new climate change initiative for Toronto on Tuesday, but he did it south of the border in New York.
Miller is in the U.S. city to attend the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit, a four-day conference focusing on climate change.
The web-based plan, GoZero! Toronto, is designed to help people battle climate change by measuring their carbon footprints and providing information on how to reduce them.
"It will tell people how to calculate their own climate change footprint, connect them with programs that allow them to change their behaviour and also allow people to network in their neighbourhoods and communities to come together to buy solar panels, for example, for heating," Miller told CTV's Canada AM.
Torontonians will also be able to use the online tool to see how their carbon emissions compare to others. Miller told Canada AM that the tool will also be able to address the issue of water consumption, one of Toronto's most significant climate change issues as the water supply is dependent on electricity.
The summit is hosted by the Clinton Climate Initiative, led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. It brings mayors and business people from more than 30 cities worldwide together to discuss the role of municipalities in fighting global warming. Miller told Canada AM Clinton's organization would be making a major announcement at the conference on Wednesday.
The conference is held to get leaders of cities, responsible for 75 per cent of global energy consumption, to share ideas and policies to reverse climate change.
"What we're talking about are concrete real things cities can do to make change because it's in cities where you can act and make a very big difference," Miller told Canada AM.
GoZero! is a joint venture between the municipal government and Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit organization based in Toronto.
Miller, the only Canadian mayor attending, was invited to the summit of about 250 delegates.
The conference's website says that every year between now and 2030 will see an additional 75 million people living in cities worldwide.
Toronto's municipal government, the sixth-largest in Canada, sets policy for 2.6 million people.
Miller has identified reducing greenhouse gases as the top issue of our time and was a keystone of his platform in last year's election.