Protect jobs, cut carbon emissions to improve New York

Nobody multi-tasks like New Yorkers. From the gleaming asphalt of the “City that Never Sleeps” to the well-tilled earth

David C. Lawler is chairman and president of bp America. upstate, Empire Staters never waste a minute. So when it comes to protecting jobs and cutting carbon emissions, why not do both?

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Albany lawmakers can do just that by bringing New York into a plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s infamously wheezy transportation sector. Known as the Transportation and Climate Initiative, or TCI, it seeks to address climate change by reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels for transportation, a sector that generates nearly a third of the country ’s greenhouse gas emissions.

TCI follows a proven model from power markets called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. That program has helped New York and its neighbors eliminate nearly twice as many emissions from the power sector as the rest of the country. New York doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to achieve the same results in transportation.

RGGI relies on competitive markets to change behaviors and encourage innovation. It places a regional cap on emissions and requires companies to buy or trade allowances to emit up to the limit of the cap.

Because the cap declines annually, the allowance price will rise every year. This gives business the certainty needed to invest and develop new technologies faster and at the scale required for real progress.

While power sector emissions plummeted in the states belonging to RGGI, economic growth in these states outpaced the rest of the country. This means New York can protect the economy and the environment by taking the same approach on transportation.

RGGI’S success not only also shows how targeted carbon pricing programs are working across the region, it also helps sustain broader low carbon policies. RGGI and TCI help create carbon reduction projects that earn the credits essential to making pricing programs – like those in California and others around the world – work as designed.

So why does an integrated energy company like bp want a price on carbon? Because helping to speed the transition to cleaner energy is the right thing to do, and it will create business opportunities that can drive important change.

In February, we announced our plan to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or sooner and help the world get there. In August, we outlined a plan that aims to reduce our fossil fuel production over the next decade and enhance our focus on delivering integrated energy solutions for customers – including through a new team set up to help countries, cities and corporations decarbonize.

We want to be a leading provider of integrated mobility solutions – and TCI’S investment in the northeast region’s infrastructure enables that. The future of transportation is increasingly electric. Imagine Manhattan’s concrete canyons teeming with electric vehicles or New York’s interstates dotted with charging stations. That’s a future we want to be a part of and believe can happen – but only with proper public policy.

New York is known for its climate policy leadership. Cuomo advanced effective, low carbon policies in the past, and the state’s Independent System Operator recently proposed adding the social cost of carbon into its power auctions. Joining TCI is a logical next step.

By leading the Empire State into TCI, Cuomo and state legislators would let New Yorkers be themselves – multitaskers – in the critical areas of jobs and climate. They can protect the economy and continue to lower emissions at the same time.

We hope they will.