NY State's Ambitious New Climate Change Legislation: 'Really Major' Or 'Partial Victory'?

Climate change protesters <a href="https://gothamist.com/2019/04/17/extinction_rebellion_protest.php">are arrested in New York City in April</a>

After a spirited debate, the New York State Senate passed one of the most ambitious climate change bills in the country on Tuesday night. An agreement has been reached so that the Assembly will soon pass its own version, and Governor Andrew Cuomo will sign it into law. But what does the bill actually do to address anthropogenic global heating? And does it do enough to hold public officials accountable, and empower the communities who have disproportionately shouldered the burdens of climate change?

Perhaps the most significant feature of The New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is that it codifies a goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions, for the entire state economy, by 2050, including an 85 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

By 2030, the state must also generate 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources (up from 23 percent currently, the vast majority of that coming from hydroelectric power).

"This bill is really, really major," said Arielle Swernoff, communications coordinator for NY Renews, a coalition of 180 environmental and community groups who spent years lobbying for the legislation. "It is the strongest climate bill in the country."

Elizabeth Moran, the environmental policy director at the New York Public Interest Research Group, said that the goals of the legislation were in line with the most recent report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That report warned that "global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050” to avoid the worst effects of global heating.

New York's 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gases appears to lead the nation (other states have a target of 80), but Washington's climate bill passed in April sets a target for 100 percent carbon-free (not carbon neutral, which allows for offsets) electric grid by 2045.

The zero-carbon to carbon neutral shift was one of several compromises that were created in the latest version of New York's bill. Earlier versions had more benchmarks between now and 2050, which Moran said "add an important element of accountability and tracking to make sure the state sticks with the ultimate target." The hard commitment to invest 40 percent of green energy funds in low-income, minority communities ("disadvantaged communities" as the bill language puts it) affected by climate change has been dialed back to 35 percent, though 40 remains the aspirational target. And labor provisions that would help workers displaced from the carbon economy were trimmed.

A new 22-member New York State Climate Action Council, comprised of the heads of state agencies and appointees from the legislature, will have two years to come up with a framework for how this will all be implemented, with the Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority executing the recommendations. Experts sitting on "advisory panels" will help guide the council's actions, including environmental justice and climate justice advisory groups.

"This is really a partial victory. We have so much work ahead of us to make sure this is true climate justice," said Annel Hernandez, the associate director with the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. "When we saw that the governor had weakened the 40 percent language [for funding to disadvantaged communities] to be more vague, to have less strength to have less teeth to it, we were really disappointed."

(The governor's office pointed to comments Cuomo made on WCNY on Tuesday: "We're talking about 40 percent of the benefit of what we do to 'disadvantaged communities,' which is also only fair and right. We want to have a clean environment for everyone, everywhere.")

Hernandez's sentiments were heard on the Senate floor last night.

"This bill does reduce emissions significantly to 85 percent and it promises to provide some ill-defined advantages to disadvantaged communities," Manhattan State Senator Robert Jackson said. "But these provisions on racial and economic justice are watered down in ways that will leave the most vulnerable among us behind. I hope we can come together in January 2020 in order to fill these gaps."

Queens Senator Jessica Ramos said on the floor last night that while the bill lays "a real foundation for us to begin the work of reversing this man-made disaster," she had questions.

"I wonder how we’ll enforce language on equity investment, I wonder how we’ll define labor standards for the transitional jobs that we’re supporting here. And I’d like to have a clearer timeline to reach that 100 percent reduction in emissions," Ramos said.

Miles Farmer, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which supported the legislation, pointed out that "there's nothing mutually exclusive about this plan and then following up with very specific, sector-based approaches."

"We need interim targets and I think we can now get those through regulation [created by the council]," Farmer said. "To be clear, following through on this bill is really important."

Moran, the environmental policy director at NYPIRG, urged New Yorkers to "stay vigilant in tracking what happens with the scoping plan, how the state maps out doing this."

"It's imperative that the public watchdog and advocate so that the state goes above and beyond what's in this law," she said.

With additional reporting from Jake Offenhartz.