Mayor Phil Gordon thinks it’s possible to turn Phoenix, Arizona into the nation’s first carbon neutral city.

His recently announced 17 point plan for Green Phoenix is designed to cut the city’s greenhouse emissions by about 70% within three to four years. The scope is ambitious, but the plan, developed in collaboration with the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, shows promise.

The Green Phoenix plan involves reducing vehicle use in the sprawling sunbelt metropolis by providing alternative transportation, planting more trees, and promoting alternative energy such as solar energy. In fact, solar energy could be considered the key component of this plan, with the aim of installing solar panels and solar water heaters in all existing city buildings and making them a requirement for all new buildings. Plus all lighting at park-and-ride and light-rail stops would be powered by solar energy.

In fact, Mayor Gordon hopes that one day Phoenix will be seen as the “City of the Sun” with it’s own solar-power plant on 1,200 acres at the city’s landfill.

Fitting, given that the one thing that Phoenix has plenty of is sunshine.

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