Photo Courtesy of Caroline Willis/Mayoral Photography Office
Mayor Adams said his new plan highlights efforts the City is taking to protect New Yorkers from climate threats, improve quality of life, and build the green economy.
By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday released PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done, the City’s long-term strategic climate plan that highlights efforts the City is taking to protect New Yorkers from climate threats, improve quality of life, and build the green economy.
This is the fifth in a series of climate plans released every four years by the City, as required by local law, and was developed with input from the City Climate Cabinet, which consists of representatives from more than 35 city agencies and offices, the Sustainability Advisory Board, and stakeholders.
Actions in the plan specifically focus on execution and implementation, delivering on promises made to New Yorkers, and creating an equitable, healthy, and resilient future. PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done also spotlights opportunities to leverage available state and federal funding sources, and comes in tandem with calls from Adams to ensure that NYC receives its fair share of federal and state funding.
Plan highlights include:
Implementing Climate Budgeting to Align City Resources with Sustainability and Resiliency Goals
New York City will be the first big city in America to launch a climate budgeting initiative to ensure that it remains laser focused on prioritizing climate change and environmental justice in investments and decision-making. Climate budgeting is a process that incorporates science-based climate considerations into the city’s budget decision making process by evaluating how actions and spending today contribute to meeting longer-term climate targets. The process will help the city understand the climate impact of the dollars spent, identify where more investment is needed, and champion forward-looking investments to equitably achieve net-zero emissions citywide by 2050, as well as bolster resilience to extreme heat and flooding. The Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget will lead this initiative in partnership with MOCEJ.
The Public Solar Initiative
In coordination with the Office of the Comptroller, the Adams administration will create a first-of-its-kind public solar financing program for one-to-four family, low-income homeowners in environmental justice communities (neighborhoods that have historically, and continue to, experience the disproportionate impacts of climate change). In the past, low-income homeowners have been excluded from the clean energy economy and could not afford the upfront costs of installing rooftop solar panels, heat pumps, or other energy efficiency retrofits. The Public Solar initiative will help overcome those cost barriers. The city will pursue funds from the federal Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to provide 3,000 homes with proactive door-to-door outreach and financial assistance for rooftop solar panels over the next five years.
Protecting New York from Climate Threats and Reducing Carbon Emissions
The future of New York City — and the planet — depends on reducing emissions and adapting to the clear and present danger of climate change. Extreme heat and flooding — from storms to sea level rise and rainfall — take hundreds of lives each year and costs billions of dollars. Sea levels in New York City have already risen by a foot since 1900 and are projected to rise by up to 5.4 additional feet by the end of the century, according to the New York City Panel on Climate Change. New York City’s floodplain contains nearly 20 percent of the city’s area, and by the 2080s, large portions of some coastal neighborhoods could flood with greater frequency. The city will develop minimum flood resiliency standards for shoreline assets and establish a citywide level of service for stormwater infrastructure, ensuring that New York City’s coast, as well as vulnerable inland communities, are invested in and protected.
The city will also launch a program to explore housing mobility and land acquisition options, to support residents interested in moving from flood-vulnerable areas through housing and financial counseling and convert newly acquired land into resilient parcels that manage flooding. The city will pursue state and federal grants to acquire properties in flood-vulnerable areas.
Further, PlaNYC is dedicated to addressing extreme heat. Scientists predict in an average year in the 2030s, there will be up to three times as many 90-degree days and nearly four times as many heat waves as there have been in the recent past. The city will maximize access to indoor cooling by requiring all new building construction to include cooling infrastructure and advocating for reforms to the New York State Home Energy Assistance Program so that it broadly covers equipment and energy costs for cooling in addition to heating.
Additionally, the city will continue to reduce emissions by helping large private buildings comply with Local Law 97, which aims to reduce the emissions produced by New York City’s largest buildings by 40 percent by 2030 and to be carbon-neutral by 2050. To do so, the city will develop financing tools and work with state partners to identify state incentives to accelerate compliance, develop trainings and certifications, and expand NYC Accelerator — a one-stop-shop for building stakeholders to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions from New York City buildings. Moreover, PlaNYC reinforces New York City’s leading efforts in clean construction by requiring the city’s capital project agencies to commit to actions that will lower embodied carbon — greenhouse gas emissions arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials. This plan will encourage industry partners to gain experience with low carbon construction materials and methods and create accompanying codes for common materials. This will build a market for low-carbon construction alternatives with electric construction equipment and continued research and development of new construction means and methods.
In order to prevent emissions and protect New Yorkers from climate change threats, the city is also committing to the following:
Reducing the city’s carbon emissions from food by 33 percent by 2030 and launching a corporate challenge to help the private sector reduce its carbon emissions from food by 25 percent by 2030.
Releasing a new, integrated emissions inventory, which takes into account emissions from the production of goods and services New Yorkers use, regardless of where that production takes place.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by eight percent in the manufacturing of concrete for DDC projects by using limestone cement in place of ordinary portland cement.
Implementing New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development design guidelines to address energy efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency retrofits.
Achieving a 30 percent tree canopy cover — representing 15,388 additional acres of tree canopy.
Continuing to design and construct world-class neighborhood-scale coastal protection projects and partnering with the United States Army Corps of Engineers on the NY & NJ Harbor & Tributaries Feasibility Study process.
Bringing the Climate Strong Community program to the Soundview (Bronx), Brownsville (Brooklyn), Corona (Queens), and Port Richmond (Staten Island) neighborhoods while building on prior work in Canarsie (Brooklyn) and East Harlem (Manhattan) to unlock federal and state funding
Developing an air quality monitoring program to understand air quality impacts of pollution within neighborhoods and improving regulations and rules.
Improving New Yorkers’ Quality of Life
New York City has built one of the largest urban park systems in the country, invested billions in its wastewater systems, brought marine life back to its waterways, and developed one of the most robust transportation systems of any major city in the United States. Continuing to improve these systems will lead to a more resilient and sustainable city while helping to mitigate and adapt to climate change. That starts with the city’s green spaces. Too many of its natural areas are underappreciated, challenging to access, and in need of more dedicated stewardship. Across all five boroughs, there are greenway projects in planning, design, and construction, which will create safe active transportation routes and facilitate connections between parks. The city will improve more than 300 miles of trails, many of which are in outer borough parks, and make 12,000 acres of existing city-owned natural areas more accessible through improvements, programming, and promotion. The city will invest in forested areas and improve its health, as well as the overall health of its communities.
