"There's been a shift in the United States away from climate action and I think there are a lot of complicated reasons for that. And the city's politics reflect that too," said Pete Sikora, climate and inequality campaigns director at New York Communities for Change.
Buttigieg made his national ambitions clear when he launched an ultimately unsuccessful presidential run in 2020 while mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He served in the Biden cabinet as transportation secretary, where he was forced to contend with a pile-on of crises.