The C40 Plan

City mayors like Los Angeles’ visited livable eco-cities like Curitiba to help them learn to influence actions in their own hometowns. Chicago’s Climate Action Plan, launch in 2008 was an attempt by the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, to reduce the city’s greenhouse emissions from its 1990 levels to 75% by 2020. As a result, its public transit usage rose, much less water was wasted (millions of gallons conserved), and eco-friendly changes were implemented such as a new line of hybrid buses and energy efficiency improvements in a total of 13,400 buildings. 

From The Economist's "Greening the Concrete Jungle" 

This effort shows that small changes—“tweaks” instead of “sweeping social engineering”—works well in the retrofitting process ("Greening the Concrete Jungle"). Conservation changes can be as small as switching lights from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent LED (light emitting diode) bulbs and switching the tops of roofs from asphalt heat-absorbing ones to green roofs (like Chicago’s City Hall) or heat-reflecting white roofs. Infrastructure changes can start with repaving streets with lighter, porous surfaces to reflect heat and decrease water runoff.  New York has created its own PLaNYC program as a result of its facing immense population growth to 9 million in the next 20 years, in which it hopes to improve public transportation and revitalize brownfield sites. A number of American cities have been listed under C40, which addresses urban planning and retrofitting for each specific city’s needs. C40 prioritizes public transit, implementing hybrid and electric vehicles into systems, increasing composting and recycling programs like those in Curitiba, increasing outdoor lighting efficiency which accounts for a fifth of current energy consumption and retrofitting homes and offices. At the same time, these changes are meant to save taxpayers money in the long-term. If Miami wanted to become active in retrofitting, it could join the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group[1]

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[1]LCCLG already comprises of 58 cities, with 297 million people accounting for 18% of the world’s GDP and 10% of all carbon emissions. These cities also account for 2/3 of its energy consumption and more than 60% of its greenhouse gas emissions