Pending Climate Bill could Transform NY Energy Market

Could New York go carbon free by 2050?

The Climate and Community Protection Act could transform New York’s energy market.

By Susan Arbetter | December 12, 2018 |  Excerpt

The Climate and Community Protection Act, sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman Steve Englebright, is an expansive bill that requires New York state to generate 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030. By 2050, the bill would require the elimination of all greenhouse gas emissions.

The bill is process-oriented. Baked into the plan is a climate action playbook that proponents say will guide the state from its current level of fossil fuel use down to zero.

For workers who may be displaced by the proposed transition to renewables, the bill includes prevailing wage standards and addresses the needs of environmental justice communities where many fossil fuel plants are currently located. The bill is, in one activist’s words, “a B-12 shot for the state’s renewables.”

Currently, New York only uses 3 percent wind energy and less than 1 percent from solar energy. “This is the most important issue on Earth,” said Englebright, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation. “States now have to pick up the slack that has been created by the inaction of the federal government.”

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, who was recently tapped to chair the state Senate’s Environmental Conservation Committee starting in January, agreed. “There is no doubt we need to take aggressive steps to address climate change,” he said. “This bill will be the central vehicle by which we will accomplish that.”

Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said the state needs a strong foundation for setting its clean energy goals in law. “Right now the goals don’t exist in law,” he said. “They are at the whim of the executive.”