The big state news last week\nwas Governor Cuomo\u2019s approval of the Climate Leadership and Community\nProtection Act. The governor signed the\nlegislation with considerable fanfare. \nHis team organized an event and invited a large crowd of activists,\nlobbyists, labor groups, businesses and elected officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The governor shared the\nstage with former Vice President Gore, whose movie \u201cAn Inconvenient Truth\u201d\nbrought the science of global warming to the general public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new law sets ambitious\nenvironmental goals for New York State:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the law is supposed to create a process to ensure\nat least 35% of investments from clean energy funds are invested in lower\nincome and communities of color, which have been disproportionately borne\nenvironmental harms . One criticism of\nthe law was that the final agreement was weaker than supporters wanted with\nregard to environmental justice requirements and spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his speech at the bill signing event, the governor\ndescribed four principles that guided his approach to the climate crisis. He said the legislation needed to set\nambitious goals, then develop a realistic plan of action, encourage the\nparticipation of businesses that will benefit from the movement away from\nfossil fuel power, and train the necessary workforce to make the plan a\nreality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He commented, that his \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d is the \u201cReal Deal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what was missing from the governor\u2019s plan was how to\nmeasure its performance. After all, if\nthe goals are great, but the implementation falls behind, it increases the\ndifficulties in achieving those goals. \nSaying that the state will not rely on fossil fuels for its electricity\nby the year 2040 is laudable, but if meaningful annual steps are not taken each\nyear, that goal will be increasingly out-of-reach. This concern will be brought in to sharp\nfocus if and when the economy slows down and lawmakers feel pressure to\nshortchange climate efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And failing to achieve laudable goals has happened\nbefore. In his 2009 State of the State\naddress, then-Governor Paterson, called for an aggressive clean energy plan\nthat set a \u201945 by 15\u2032 goal in which 45% of New York state’s electricity needs\nwould be met through improved energy efficiency and a greater use of clean\nrenewable energy by 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did New York achieve that goal? Doesn\u2019t look like it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Does that mean that the state shouldn\u2019t advance aggressive\nenvironmental goals to combat global warming? \nOf course not, but an independent and transparent way to monitor\nprogress toward those goals is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The governor should mandate robust annual reporting that includes\ndetailed data on key climate metrics and verifies that the state is moving to reduce its carbon footprint (e.g<\/em>., changes to its building construction\ncode to maximize energy efficiencies) in order to meet its climate change\ngoals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Independent\nmonitoring will not only ensure that the state is making progress toward its\nclimate change goals, but also bolster public support for successful programs. New Yorkers will be asked to participate in a\nparadigm shift as part of the state\u2019s \u201cGreen New Deal.\u201d We should get annual report cards to see how\nwell we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The big state news last week was Governor Cuomo\u2019s approval of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The governor signed the legislation with considerable fanfare. His team organized an event and invited a large crowd of activists, lobbyists, labor groups, businesses and elected officials. The governor shared the stage with former Vice President Gore, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2274,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions\/2274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}