Climate plan could drive significant changes
ALBANY, N.Y. >> Solar panels on every roof. Parking meters that double as car chargers. Wind turbines towering above farm fields and ocean waves.
A new law signed Thursday by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sets the nation’s most aggressive targets for reducing carbon emissions and is intended to drive dramatic changes over the next 30 years. It calls for all the state’s electricity to come from renewable, carbon-free sources such as solar, wind and hydropower. Transportation and building heating systems would also run on clean electricity rather than oil and gas.
“The environment and climate change are the most critically important policy priorities we face,” the Democratic governor said in announcing his signing of the sweeping climate legislation and the nation’s largest offshore wind project. “They literally will determine the future — or the lack thereof.”
But while the legislation’s goals are clear, details on how to achieve them have yet to be determined. It isn’t clear how much all this change will cost, or even whether it is all technically feasible.
Some critics call the plan impractical.
“It would require massive deployment of both onshore and offshore wind, which is going to be enormously costly,” said Robert Bryce, an energy specialist at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “You already have local opposition to onshore wind that has stymied the state’s ability to build any new capacity.”
The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and offset the remaining 15 percent with measures such as planting forests and capturing carbon for storage underground.
A new 22-member New York State Climate Action Council will have three years to recommend mandates, regulations, incentives and other measures.
The law will require utilities to get 70 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Last year, 26.4 percent came from renewables, according to a report by New York Independent System Operator, the nonprofit corporation that runs the state’s power grid.
“The legislation is going to shape the way we live, work and play going forward,” said Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, which supports the plan.
Massive wind farms will play a key role in the transition.
Cuomo announced Nor
way-based Equinor will develop one farm, generating power for New York City, while a joint venture of Connecticut-based Eversource Energy and Orsted A/S, a Danish company, will develop another, off the coast of Long island.
Combined, the two farms will have a 1,700-megawatt capacity, enough to power 1 million homes, Cuomo said at the signing, where he was joined by former Vice President Al Gore.
“This is the most ambitious, the most well-crafted legislation in the country,” Gore said.
The act calls for 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2035. It also calls for 6,000 megawatts of solar capacity by 2025, five times the current amount.
The Climate Action Council will likely call for new building codes to increase energy efficiency and require heating and cooling systems using electric heat pumps that transfer heat between indoors and outdoors. There may be incentives to retrofit existing homes and buildings.
The New York City Council this spring passed an aggressive climate bill of its own that would require energy-efficient building retrofits.
Since transportation makes up a third of the state’s emissions, the climate council will likely push for greater mass transit and an accelerated shift to electric vehicles, which the state now promotes with rebates and investments in charging infrastructure.