Niagara Falls Mayor Paul A. Dyster views his city's future through green-tinted glasses.

During his first year on the job, Dyster pushed programs to conserve energy, in both city government and the private sector. He's also taken steps to start rebuilding Niagara Falls' industrial base around renewable energy, starting with a 500-job factory that will produce silicon for solar panels.

The mayor regards an aggressive, smart response to global warming as key to the city's fate. Global warming is not a fad, he said, and cities need to adapt in order to succeed.

"The cities that are the most nimble in addressing the challenges of their day will become more prosperous," he said. "Those that lag on this issue are going to find themselves increasingly impoverished."

Down the road in Buffalo, such strategic thinking and bold action are largely absent under Mayor Byron W. Brown, according to leaders in the local green community.

While there have been halting signs of progress, particularly in efforts to clean brownfields in South Buffalo, most environmental leaders interviewed for this story said the Brown administration has been slow out of the gate.

"I think we're still substantially behind most peer cities. If you look at a Milwaukee, a Cincinnati, they've got a lot more going on," said Sam Magavern, an instructor at the University at Buffalo Law School and primary author of a report released this spring called "Greening Buffalo: What Local Governments Can Do."

City Hall has no staff dedicated to deal with green issues and most of the stubborn problems remain largely unaddressed: recycling rates are low and the city isn't attempting to build to green standards as it spends nearly $1 billion to reconstruct its public school system.

Brown refused to comment for this story.

"I'm definitely disappointed," added Walter Simpson, UB's former energy officer and co-founder of the Western New York Climate Action Coalition.

"For a major city to ignore the most serious environmental problem we're facing is unforgivable."

Suffice to say, Buffalo is not going green under Brown. At least not quickly.

Three years ago, cities across the nation began to pledge to combat global warming in the wake of the U.S. refusal to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol. The initiative's objective is to reduce carbon emissions in their cities by 2012 to 7 percent below the levels present in 1990.

More than 500 cities, including Buffalo and Niagara Falls, have signed on to the initiative sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Many are finding that, in cutting carbon, they're finding ways of controlling costs in this era of soaring energy prices.

>Green-collar jobs

Much of the emphasis has been on energy conservation: fuel- efficient vehicles, energy-efficient buildings and lighting, purchase of clean energy, and sustainable building design.

Dyster said he has several reasons for his green emphasis.

For starters, he said the 8 million tourists who visit the Falls "expect to find a green city here. Not just a green city, but the greenest of the green."

Beyond that, he said, going green is essential to stop global warming. For him, it's not just about saving the planet, but reducing energy costs, which consume a growing portion of budgets for not just the city, but homeowners and business owners.

Dyster has been boldest on the economic development front by challenging how the New York Power Authority allocates low-cost hydropower to local industry.

This power, which saves about 100 companies in Niagara and Erie counties more than $200 million a year, has been treated as a birthright by many recipients, some enjoying allocations since the early 1960s.

The problem: subsidies in some cases are extremely generous and go to fading industries.

Dyster has pushed for allocations to develop an industry sector in renewable energy. He successfully lobbied state officials to award a large 40-megawatt allocation to Globe Metals, which is retrofitting a plant off Highland Avenue to produce silicon used to to manufacture solar panels. A quarter of the plant's production will be earmarked for solar panel manufacturers in New York State.