ALBUQUERQUE — The war on global warming and climate change is being waged on thousands of fronts these days, and many of the top combatants are in Albuquerque this week for strategy sessions. But the Local Action Summit may be most notable for who is not there — the generals.



Sponsored by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, or ICLEI, the summit brings together officials from cities and towns around the world whose leaders want to do more to make the planet sustainable, said Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, who gave the welcoming address Wednesday morning. Representatives from municipal governments in the United States, as well as from Mexico, Germany and other countries — but no national leaders — will talk about what’s working in their communities and perhaps take home some ideas for improvement, he said.



In particular, the 400 members of ICLEI USA have been fighting a lonely battle against climate change, Chavez said.



“We’re all reacting to the fact the federal government has been an abject failure” on the issue of global warming, he said. Because of that inaction from Washington, D.C., hundreds of cities, counties and states have taken on the leadership role and passed tougher environmental standards than the nation requires. “Any more,” Chavez said, “we’re not reacting, we’re acting.”



Albuquerque, for example, is one of many cities that bypassed the White House and agreed to follow the Kyoto Protocols, which calls for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to below 1990 levels. The city has won international acclaim for other elements of its sustainability program, notably having reduced overall water use and tapping the Rio Grande for drinking water. Chavez said the City of Albuquerque has also far exceeded its goal of reducing its emissions by 7 percent.



The city backed off some of its earlier green claims after The Albuquerque Journal in January noted numerous exaggerations on the city’s Web site. City officials acknowledged the errors — for example, that the “citizens of Albuquerque” had cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 64 percent from 2000 to 2005. In fact, that was the city government, not the entire community, the Journal found. Another claim, that the city’s greenhouse-gas emissions fell by 6 percent from 1990 to 2005, was based on an erroneous calculation that natural gas consumption had fallen by 87 percent.



In an interview Tuesday, Chavez told the New Mexico Independent that many of the problems cited by the Journal were the result of monitoring and measurement problems — an issue that will be front and center at this week’s ICLEI summit, he said.



“There are lumps in the road” in gauging progress in the war on climate change, Chavez said. For example, a manufacturer might calculate a machine’s greenhouse-gas emissions standards at sea level, while Albuquerque is a mile high and the machine doesn’t operate the same at that elevation, he said. Who counts the emissions from trucks that drive through a city? Do you measure roads down the centerline, or by each mile of lane in either direction?



As The New Yorker reported in February, businesses, governments and individuals are learning that determining one’s carbon footprint is far easier said than done. “What we’re doing is something that’s never been done before,” Chavez said. “It’s like 3-D chess, only harder.”



Easing the learning curve is one of the reasons ICLEI formed in 1990, as well as why it has grown to more than 1,000 members and why the group is meeting in Albuquerque this week, said Chavez, who is one of the group’s U.S. board members. Seminar topics range from building codes and solar energy to engaging the community in climate work and “The Elephant in the Room: Transportation Emissions at the Local Level.”



Among the panelists are several from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. While the federal government was slow to engage in climate change discussion, Chavez said that’s starting to change. “The feds are starting to follow the local governments’ lead,” he said.



Though the war against climate change is gaining momentum, and even though all three major presidential contenders have said they will make significant cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, ICLEI USA and its members from Anchorage to Annapolis can’t let up, Chavez said. The looming shift in federal policy on climate change is both “a relief and a challenge,” he said. It will be a relief to have the federal government working toward the same goal as many cities have for years.



On the other hand, Chavez said, “We want to make sure that whatever comes out of Washington is not unfunded mandates, but something we can live with.”