Signing onto a national agreement to conserve energy is a progressive step for Bangor and other communities, but more important is work that the city and others have already done and will continue to do to reduce energy use, preserve open space and reduce pollution.

The Bangor City Council will soon consider joining the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Change Protection Agreement. It should. It would become the 11th city in Maine, and the northernmost, to join the agreement. Other Maine locales that have signed on include Belfast, Waterville, Portland and Lewiston.

The agreement, signed by more than 750 mayors across the country, is meant to be a localized, yet national, plan for communities to reduce global-warming pollution. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels launched the effort in February 2005 when the Kyoto Protocol became law in 141 countries but not the United States, which has failed to ratify the treaty. The protocol suggested the United States reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The mayors’ agreement urges communities to meet the Kyoto targets in the absence of federal action. It offers a dozen steps communities can take.

Bangor has already done many of the things on the list. For example, the city already buys energy-efficient appliances and equipment when it needs to replace old ones. It has adopted energy and environmental design standards for new buildings and renovations to existing ones.

In one of the largest steps to date, the city had an energy audit conducted by Honeywell Building Solutions. The audit of the city’s general facilities, which includes City Hall, the Bass Park civic center and auditorium, and public works facilities, among others, was presented to the city last month. Audits of the airport, school buildings and wastewater treatment plant will be forthcoming.

The first report recommended 62 projects, such as replacing old light fixtures with more efficient ones, weatherproofing windows and doors and installing better temperature controls, that could result in savings of more than $150,000 a year. In addition to recovering the $1.2 million cost of the improvements within 10 years, the upgrades would reduce the city’s energy usage by more than 13 percent.

This would save money as well as reduce the city’s energy consumption and the resultant greenhouse gas pollution. It also shows that small changes that people can also make to their homes and offices can help in terms of economics and climate change as well.

This may be more important than signing an agreement.