Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Santa Claus will be landing in the climate-change wars when his sleigh comes to Seattle this year.

Mayor Greg Nickels made the red-suited gift-bearer the centerpiece of Operation Save Santa, a campaign to tell kids how they can help reduce global warming -- and to flaunt what Seattle is doing.

Nickels sent an open letter to Santa on Nov. 21 expressing concern about the North Pole's melting ice cap, then had staff members hand out ``Save Santa'' stickers and energy-efficient light bulbs.

``We know reindeer can fly, but we are not sure they can tread water,'' Nickels said this week at a conference for new mayors at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 2005, Nickels began enlisting other mayors to join him in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, even though the U.S. government hasn't signed the 1997 treaty. More than 700 cities are participating. Seattle says its emissions are 8 percent below 1990 levels, mainly from conservation and buying less power from coal-fired plants.

``Wish our federal government could say that,'' Nickels, a Democrat, wrote in his letter to Santa.

His recruitment of Santa was more naughty than nice to the Washington Policy Center, a Seattle public-policy group that advocates ``free market solutions.''

The group countered with a Nov. 27 statement quoting ``a jolly Father Christmas'' saying he was pleased to hear that a recent study by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Washington found that some recent changes in Arctic climate may not be related to global warming.

Transplanting Santa

It suggested that if Santa does lose his frozen home in the north, he could move.

``Ice at the South Pole is actually increasing, leaving options for relocation open,'' the group said in the statement.

Nickels, speaking at Harvard, called Santa ``a convenient prop.'' He said he wasn't a true believer in climate change until the winter of 2004-2005, when a record small snowfall reduced the spring melt that provides Seattle with water and powers hydroelectric dams.

``We're trying different ways to communicate to people,'' Nickels said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Robison in Seattle at robison@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 30, 2007 03:03 EST