NYS Assembly Passes Climate Bill Promoting Renewable Energy, Green Jobs, and Community/Worker Protections

THANK YOU New York State Assembly, Assemblyman Steve Englebright, Honorable Speaker of the New York State Assembly Carl E. Heastie, for passing the Climate and Community Protection Act by a huge margin!

Now we need the same climate leadership from Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York State Senate, so we can get this critical bill passed in 2018, fight climate change, protect frontline communities, and ensure green jobs are good jobs.

Big THANK YOU to Assembly Members who changed their votes from No in 2017 to YES in 2018! To see how Your Assembly Member voted, click here.

For a Summary of the Bill, click here.

Statewide Coalition Demands Cuomo make Polluters Pay for a Clean Energy Transition

NY RENEWS delivers symbolic $7Billion check at the State Capitol - 2.27.2018

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Coalition Calls for Polluter Fee to Fund Transition to Renewable Energy

February 28, 2018

ALBANY, N.Y. — Climate activists delivered a symbolic $7-billion check to Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, saying that's what New York stands to gain through a corporate polluter fee. The activists had just attended the Environmental Conservation Committee's budget hearing.

According to Dan Sherrell, the campaign coordinator for New York Renews, the governor's budget doesn't go far enough to address the growing effects of climate change but imposing a polluter fee on greenhouse-gas emissions could pave the way to 100-percent renewable energy by 2050.

"We could be raising $7 billion in revenue a year that could be invested in environmental-justice communities to protect them from the worst effects of climate change and in renewable energy," he says.

The governor has called for a program to bring solar power to 10,000 low-income New Yorkers, the development of offshore wind, and the closure of all coal-fired power plants.

Cuomo also has called for expansion of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate compact for reducing power-plant emissions. But Sherrell says a corporate polluter fee would be more effective.

"It will raise more revenue and it will be a more aggressive price," he notes. "And critically, it will be across the economy, so it will also tackle buildings and transportation which together make up almost 80 percent of the state's emissions."

He says the governor's office has indicated interest in creating a polluter fee but has made no commitment to pursue it.

New York has been a national leader in developing clean-energy strategies. But Sherrell notes other states are now considering corporate polluter fees as a way to advance their efforts, and they could soon leave New York behind.

"Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state is making this his priority issue for this year," he adds. "Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey has spoken about it and has also committed to 100 percent renewable energy, which Gov. Cuomo has not."

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand have expressed support for carbon pricing as a way to boost investment in renewable energy.

Andrea Sears, Public News Service - NY

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NY RENEWS at Gov. Cuomo’s Exec. Budget Hearing on Environmental Conservation - 2.27.2018

Naomi Klein, Author & Activist: Polluting Industries, Climate Disruption and Justice

Speech by Naomi Klein

delivered on the day of the historic announcement that New York City is divesting from fossil fuels and suing five oil majors who knowingly deepened the climate crisis.

For a very long time, our movements have been insisting that principles of justice need to be at the center of the response to the climate crisis – a crisis that plays out in the most perversely unjust ways right now.

Justice means that people who did the least to create this crisis but are bearing the heaviest risks and most toxic burdens need to be first to benefit from green economic development and job creation.

Justice also means that workers in polluting industries are not sacrificed or left behind. And justice means something else too, something most politicians are loath to talk about because the wealth and power of fossil fuel companies is so vast.

It means that the corporate interests that did the most to get us into this mess – with their pollution and with their campaigns of wilful misinformation – are going to have to pay their true share of the tremendous costs of climate disruption, and of delayed transition. Because right now we have it upside down and backwards.

As it stands, the costs of sea level rise and ferocious and unprecedented weather events are offloaded on to the public, with taxpayers stiffed with the ballooning bills. And as governments absorb these costs, there is less money for schools, for affordable transit and housing, for health care. And, in yet another bitter irony, this hurts the people who are already impacted by climate change the most.

This city saw all this in dramatic fashion during Sandy, when it was the people in public housing who were left for weeks in the cold and dark.

Meanwhile, the extravagant profits from destabilizing our planet’s life support system, earned from ignoring and suppressing the scientific consensus – well, those are systematically privatized.

Earlier this decade, ExxonMobil alone made $45 billion in profits in a single year– more than any company in history. Enough to pay Rex Tillerson, then its CEO $100,000 a day.

In short, the status quo means the poor are paying again and again for the polluters to get even richer. It’s a world upside down. But that starts to change today.

By suing these five oil majors who knowingly deepened the climate crisis, and simultaneously beginning the process of divesting $5-billion from fossil fuel companies, New York City is taking a game changing first step in turning the world right side up. And not to overstate the case, but I actually think this could change the world.

There have been lawsuits before that have tried to sue the fossil fuel giants for climate damages. The tiny Arctic community of Kivalina, population 383, which attempted to recover the costs of having to relocate. Some citizens of the low-lying Pacific Island of Vanuatu– population 300,000 – that began a similar suit. A lone Peruvian farmer, suing a German coal giant for the risks to his home. A small group of Gulf Coast Mississippi homeowners, with the help of a scrappy lawyer, who tried to sue the fossil fuel companies after Hurricane Katrina.

These have been valiant attempts, but in every case, the industry has relied on the relative weakness and poverty of its accusers, sometime managing to quash suits before they were filed.

And that is why today’s news is so historic. Because bullying isn’t going to work here the way it has in the past. This lawsuit is coming from the largest city in the most powerful country on the planet, a city which also happens to be the financial capital of world.

And now that New York City has thrown down in such a big way – on divestment, on polluter pays — it’s going to embolden all kinds of other actors to step up as well. Other cities around the world. Universities. Foundations. Other states. Even entire nation states.

As of today, everyone needs to up their ambition. Be bolder. Move faster. It’s what our planet requires. And it’s what justice demands. No politician on the planet is doing enough. But there can be no doubt that the bar for what it takes to call yourself a climate leader has just been dramatically raised.

The full text is at GoFossilFree.org

CLIMATE ACTION: 'Call-the-Governor Day' Organized by Statewide Clean Energy Coalition - Tuesday Nov. 21

This Tuesday, November 21st, NY Renews is organizing a statewide Call-the-Governor Day. 

Our goal is to have over 1,000 New Yorkers call into the Governor’s office, and demand that he show visionary leadership in his 2018 State of the State. 

We need him to commit to 100% renewables, and make corporate polluters pay for the damage they're doing to our health and our climate. 

Tell Governor Cuomo to do 2 things in his State of the State Address:  

• Support the Climate and Community Protection Act; and
• Create thousands of jobs and support a just transition to renewable energy by making corporate polluters pay their fair share.

That's it!

Join us TODAY Tuesday, Nov.21 
from 9am-9pm!

 Go To: http://nyrenews.org/call

It’s time to ask Governor Cuomo to walk his talk. The Governor has pledged to meet and exceed the standards set by the Paris climate accords.

A new report by one of the most respected climate economists in the country shows exactly how Cuomo can live up to his promises: by increasing investment in the transition to 100% renewable energy and making corporate climate polluters pay for the damage they’re doing to our health and our climate.

Today, let’s call the Governor and ask him to live up to his promises to be a climate leader. Our goal? To have over 1,000 New Yorkers call into the Governor’s office, and demand that commit to visionary climate action in his 2018 State of the State address in January.

If you’re at your computer or smartphone, follow this link to call Governor Cuomo’s office. You'll hear a brief recorded message with tips and instructions, then you'll be patched through to Gov Cuomo's office.

If you're not at a computer, you can reach the instructions & Governor Cuomo by dialing 518-241-4793.

Dr. Robert Pollin’s report from the University of Massachusetts shows a just transition to clean energy in New York means making corporate polluters pay for the true cost of their emissions, and then investing that money in the New York we want to build: a state with good jobs, clean air, and healthy communities safe from climate disaster.

So join hundreds of other New Yorkers calling the Governor today by clicking this link.

Governor Cuomo will not commit to truly ambitious climate action without hearing thousands of his constituents demand it. It’s up to us to make that happen.

Thanks for calling, and spread the word!

NY State Support for Clean, Renewable Energy will Benefit Health, Climate and Economy

Renewable Energy will Benefit Everyone

By Robert M. Ciesielski

In August, the New York State Public Service Commission established the Clean Energy Standard, a procedure to enable 50 percent of the state’s electricity to be provided from renewable energy sources by 2030. The mechanism implements the 2015 New York State Energy Plan based on a four-year study of our state’s energy system.

New York’s goal is similar to the 50 percent renewable energy by 2030 law adopted by the California legislature last year and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The Massachusetts legislature also passed an energy bill in 2016 ensuring that by 2030, 40 percent of the state’s electricity will be provided from renewable sources, while including a major commitment to offshore wind power.

New York, California and Massachusetts comprise 20 percent of our nation’s population. If these states were considered a country, they would comprise the fourth-largest economy of the world. These states are a beacon to the United States, showing the promise of a sustainable, clean, renewable energy economy. Development of renewable energy not only counters climate change and the adverse health effects of polluted water, air and land, but offers substantial economic benefits to

The future economy is already available to us. In December, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) announced the approval of a 90 megawatt wind farm off eastern Long Island. The project is supported by 85 percent of Long Island’s residents, including a bipartisan political coalition of workers, unions, environmentalists and business leaders. The wind project will supply electricity to some 50,000 homes. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has set a goal of 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, enough to power well over 1 million residences and provide for a healthy downstate economy.

Europe currently supplies much of its energy from wind and solar sources. Europeans supply over 10 gigawatts, or 10,000 megawatts, of electricity from offshore wind alone. The strength of the European economy is based in large part on the conscious decision of many of its countries to proceed with renewable energy development, stimulating investments in manufacturing and the installation of renewable energy sources.

Looking at the Earth, I am concerned about the detrimental effects of our current fossil fuel and nuclear based economy. The Paris Climate Agreement, signed by 194 countries, is a worldwide measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the global climate from increasing beyond 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) with the aspirational goal of a no greater than 1.5 degrees Celsius increase.

We have at this time the ability to help create a sustainable energy system capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the life of humankind and all creatures. Let us use the means we have been given to help protect the Earth and our children.

Robert Ciesielski is chairman of the Energy Committee of the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club.

This article above was originally published in The Buffalo News.

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Buffalo Climate Activists Takin’ it to the NYC Streets

Advocates for action on climate change will take it to the streets in New York City

By Lynda Schneekloth
Chairwoman, Sierra Club Niagara Group

 It’s not as if no one has tried to get the attention of the government of the United States and other world leaders since the early 1990s.

It’s not as if we haven’t known that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas for well over 100 years. But the world is full of distractions, disinformation and people getting very wealthy by not addressing climate change and staying the course with fossil fuels. One has to admit that the climate scientists had it wrong 20 years ago. They thought that we had until 2050 to substantially limit greenhouse gas emissions to avoid serious catastrophe.

The Kyoto Protocol, now 17 years old, outlined actions we might take, but didn’t. The United States in particular seems to be sleepwalking into the future regarding climate change. Now we know that scientists seriously underestimated how quickly things were changing.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us of the irreversible climate impacts occurring right now, and outlines disastrous impacts into the future. Leaders in the climate movement tell us this is Decade Zero. We take action now or it will be too late.

The question is: How do we get the attention of people? How do we connect with world leaders, our president and Congress, governors and local officials? How do we get the attention of everybody, since climate disruption is not simply an environmental problem, it is a planetary crisis? Pope Francis says, “I think a question that we’re not asking ourselves is: ‘Isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature?’ ” Suicide or perhaps genocide?

Now is the time to take to the streets, to shift this movement out of a segment of our society and to bring all of the people together to be more effective. It is time to take to the streets to address climate change, to invest in a new energy economy that has green jobs, to stop the monopoly of the fossil fuel giants and build shared energy production and distribution – in other words, to fight for a just transition to a new, more sustainable world.

And we are taking to the streets on Sunday in New York City at the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, who will meet to discuss world action on climate change.

More than 100,000 people are expected to march – an alliance of environmental, climate and labor movements, indigenous communities and other social, economic and democratic justice movements, all calling for ecological sanity.

We are building a big, loud movement together, for it appears that taking to the streets is the only way to protect global ecosystems from collapse and ensure a future for our children.

The text of the above article was originally published as an 'Another Voice' op-ed at The Buffalo News online on September 16, 2014. 

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For Bus Tickets to the NY City Climate March,  Click Here

"Students on hundreds of campuses, and thousands of youth vote leaders across the country are bringing their power and voices to the People's Climate March to say enough is enough," said Maura Cowley, director of Energy Action Coalition.

'DISRUPTION' - Powerful Film about Climate Change

When it comes to Climate Change, 

why do we do so little when we know so much?

Disruption lays bare the science, the shattered political process, the industry special interests and the civic paralysis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads.

This is the story of our unique moment in history. We are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and scientists say that we are the last generation that can do something about it. 

The film also takes us behind-the-scenes of the efforts to organize the People's Climate March, which promises to be the largest climate rally in the history of the planet.

Watch Disruption online [ watchdisruption.com ] and share it with your friends.
  Stay tuned for local showings of Disruption at venues in the Buffalo area.

Take Action on Climate Change: Get on the Buffalo Bus to NY City for the People's Climate March! Sierra Club Niagara Group has chartered buses and tickets are available here.

Can't go to the Climate March? Take Action by making a Donation to Sponsor Riders who can go in your place.

Over 1000 Organizations are Partnering on the Climate March! Businesses, unions, religious groups, environmental groups, schools, social justice groups, and more. To see the list, Click Here.

UPDATE - Sept. 9: THURSDAY, September 11, SCREENING of ‘DISRUPTION' - Viewing and discussion of film and the Sept. 21 People’s Climate March. 6:00pm-8:00pm, University at Buffalo, North Campus, Capen 107, Amherst. Free & open to public