Climate battle will transform lives and work
State law making an immediate impact with more changes to come
Even if you don’t believe in climate change — or want to ignore that the planet is facing an existential environmental threat that if left unchecked will lead to serious health and social trauma — you’re going to have to deal with it.
And soon.
That’s because two years ago, one of the most aggressive climate change laws in the nation, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, went into effect in New York.
The law has strict goals to decrease the use of carbon-based fuels like gasoline and natural gas while moving toward an “electrified” economy that runs on renewable electrons and other non-fossil-fuel technologies such as heat-exchange pumps and green hydrogen fuel cells.
While the average consumer may not be familiar with what the state’s climate change law is all about, they should. The climate law will influence which car you drive, the way you heat
your home and what types of jobs your kids will need to train for to thrive in New York’s future economy.
The good thing is that there is still plenty of time to prepare for the vast transformation the legislation requires to take place over the next several decades. But some of the change will come soon.
And there will be oncein-a-lifetime benefits and opportunities that are already coming to life today as the state pumps billions of dollars into local economies. The state spending, along with capital from the private sector, is designed to help the state become a leader in the green tech and renewable energy industries that are expected to be the beneficiaries of the war on climate change.
Still not convinced that any of this matters, or that it’s too late to have a voice or make an impact?
The state Climate Action Council, the 22-person committee that is trying to decide how to best implement the climate change law and reach its ambitious goals, is now accepting comments on a 341-page “draft scoping plan” that serves as a roadmap to get the state to the finish line.
Anyone can submit suggestions, ideas or criticism during a 120-day comment period that started Jan. 1. It’s designed to help shape what’s sure to be a long march to save the planet ... and position New York to benefit economically and socially along the way.
Batteries to Bethlehem
There are already benefits for those who decide to join the effort. Just ask David VanLuven, supervisor of the town of Bethlehem.
On Tuesday, VanLuven joined Gov. Kathy Hochul at the Vista Technology Campus in Slingerlands to celebrate the groundbreaking for a $55 million factory being built by Plug Power, the Latham fuel cell manufacturer.
Plug Power, which makes hydrogen-powered fuel cells designed for commercial vehicles, is one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the Capital Region, recording half a billion dollars in revenue in 2021, with plans to nearly double that amount this year.
Last fall, Plug Power approached the town with a plan to build a 350,000square-foot facility at Vista, a once-promising business park that has failed to attract any “tech” tenants since it was created a decade ago.
Initial employment will be nearly 700 people as the company moves its manufacturing from its current cramped headquarters in Colonie. It’s expected that the new site will eventually employ more than 1,600 workers.
Plug Power is aiming to become one of the world’s largest green hydrogen producers, supplying a market that is expected to grow from less than $2 billion annually to nearly $90 billion in 2030.
Those Plug Power jobs are in addition to the 500 jobs expected to be created at a wind turbine tower assembly facility planned by the Port of Albany for a piece of land on the Hudson River in the Glenmont section of Bethlehem.
Once assembled, the turbine towers will be shipped south on the Hudson to offshore wind farms expected to provide 4,300 megawatts to the state’s electrical grid.
None of these jobs would have come to Bethlehem had it not been for the state’s climate change law, which targets 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind production by 2035. It will reward companies that eliminate the need for fossil fuels through alternative sources — such as Plug Power’s products.
“We’re going to see more than 2,000 goodpaying green energy jobs here in Bethlehem,” VanLuven told the crowd assembled at the Vista site. “I’m so proud of that.”
About 5,000 people go to work in Bethlehem every day, so the addition of 2,000 new jobs will have a major impact. And that’s what those policymakers and environmental advocates pushing and shaping the climate change law point out.
While there are certainly going to be job losses as the state weans itself off fossil fuels and confronts the high costs to make the transition — new electric cars currently cost around $10,000 more than gaspowered models — the benefits of forcing New Yorkers to be early adopters of these measures will be numerous, from economic growth to less volatile energy costs and better public health outcomes that come with cleaner air and less pollution.
“I think it’s going to be a benefit rather than a burden,” VanLuven said of the climate change law.
Costs of transition
There will be pain, though, at least in the beginning of the transition to an all-electrified economy. The question is how much it will raise energy costs for consumers and businesses.
The climate council’s draft plan acknowledges the law will have a particularly negative impact on energy-intensive businesses that make things like cement, glass, metals and gases. And businesses across the state, and consumers as well, will be paying for all the required upgrades to electrify everything.
Workers in certain industries will be displaced, while some businesses will look to leave as well, which causes a problem known as “leakage” in which the state loses jobs and investment due to the climate law, and yet the greenhouse gases from that business activity is just released in
another state, which doesn’t help fight climate change at all.
“There’s a recognition that there will be job losses due to this,” said Ken Pokalsky, head of government affairs and lobbying at The Business Council of New York State. “There’s going to be disruption, and that’s going to be stressful.”
Pokalsky says he hasn’t seen any solid projections that estimate how much the average utility bill will rise, or what gasoline at the pump will be 10 years into the plan (recent global events notwithstanding), or how much of a burden businesses will have to bear.
The draft plan says that the net benefits to the state will eventually be between $90 billion and $120 billion, although that doesn’t translate for a family or small business owner who is worried about even small increases to their utility bill or prices at the pump.
“This is going to have significant costs,” Pokalsky said. “And they are going to be paid for by all segments of the New York economy. We think that these cost projections need to be part of the conversation.”
Those leading the Climate Action Council believe the economic boom the state will experience as capital pours into the state to build this new electrified, renewable economy will be unlike anything experienced in New York in generations.
Doreen Harris, CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, is cochair of the council along with Basil Seggos, the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
When asked how the state will replace those jobs lost in the transition from fossil fuels, Harris says the opportunities that will come from the complete overhaul of the state’s energy sector will more than make up for those losses, with jobs and careers that have a huge upside and growth potential.
“We are very much looking at a transition that is going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the state,” Harris said. “For every one job lost, we are looking at 10 new ones. That’s a jaw-dropping number.”
Supporters of the climate change law say another way to look at it is that the fossil fuel economy and its contribution to climate change comes with hidden costs we don’t notice — and we have been paying those steadily increasing costs for generations.
Those costs come from things like pollution that causes asthma and other diseases; extreme weather that damages property and human lives; and habitat changes that upset the delicate balance of our ecosystems that support farming and tourism. All of those factors hold the state’s economy back in different ways, and hit consumers with higher doctors bills, lost work, more expensive groceries and higher insurance rates.
Fixing those problems through climate change mitigation will have an enormous impact on daily lives, Seggos said.
“It is important to be honest about the impacts of climate change,” Seggos said. “Those kinds of things are consequential for New Yorkers. Those are significant costs already.”
OK, so you don’t want to get involved in the Climate Action Council and its draft report. What can you do yourself to combat climate change?
You could buy an electric car or put solar panels on your roof, although both will likely cost you tens of thousands of dollars.
An easier way to dip your toe into the climate change battle can be found at your local home improvement store, says Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates NY and a member of the Climate Action Council.
Iwanowicz says affordable electric leaf blowers, lawnmowers and snow blowers are already widely available as the home and garden industry shifts to accommodate climate change policies being introduced across the U.S.
Battery-powered equipment is more efficient in terms of both cost and carbon footprint since there are far fewer moving parts than in the traditional gas-powered internal-combustion engine. The same goes for cars and trucks.
“There’s going to be a lot more electrification, and that’s going to be a huge savings for consumers,” Iwanowicz said. “It’s just a better way to move people back and forth.”
Green leverage
The climate change law is also a legal framework that is having an interesting impact on how New York will regulate related industries such as utilities like National Grid.
A collection of environmental groups that were opposed to an $80 million natural gas pipeline that National Grid wanted to build across the Hudson to increase the capacity of its gas network in the Capital Region was having trouble convincing regulators at the state Public Service Commission to block the project through the normal approval process.
But with the passage of the climate change law, the opponents suddenly had a powerful tool in their quest to stop the pipeline, since it would essentially work against the law’s purpose to reduce the use of fossil fuels. And they were able to make their argument in National Grid’s most recent rate case before the PSC in which the utility had to justify its expenses in order to win rate increases for gas and electric.
The environmental coalition convinced the parties involved in the negotiations — including the state, National Grid
and business and consumer groups — that the new gas pipeline wasn’t needed, especially in light of the climate change law.
National Grid ended up tabling the project, at least for now. The fight created a blueprint for other groups to use rate cases to force serious compromise with large, regulated businesses.
Becky Meier with Stop NY Fracked Gas Pipeline, a member of the coalition, says the effort may have fallen short of its ultimate goal of permanently blocking the pipeline, but it showed the power of the climate change law.
“Although exhausting and frustrating, we felt our presence helped make a better final proposal,” Meier said.
Regional resources
In many ways, New York’s nascent climate change law and its purpose are already woven into the fabric of our everyday lives and the economy. That’s even more so here in the Capital Region.
This area is home to some of the most important climate change research being done on the planet at the state University at Albany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center and the Center of Excellence in Weather & Climate Analytics. Both are located at UAlbany’s new $180 million ETEC building at the Harriman State Office Campus, which has become the largest collection of weather experts in the state with 120 faculty and staff. The Albany office of the National Weather Service is also located at the ETEC building.
Utilities like National Grid and the New York Independent System Operator in North Greenbush, which oversees the state’s high voltage electrical grid and wholesale electricity markets, partner with UAlbany’s weather and climate centers.
Scientists at UAlbany provide them with atmospheric insights that will be critical to predicting severe weather as well as weather patterns essential to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar farms, which respectively rely on wind and sunlight to operate efficiently.
Chris Thorncroft, who heads those UAlbany climate centers and also oversees the New York State Mesonet, a network of 126 weather stations around the state, says weather prediction and analysis has become a high-tech business.
UAlbany recently announced a new partnership with IBM, a leading company in the field of artificial intelligence, to enhance UAlbany’s research and data capabilities on weather — an area that Thorncroft says is “rapidly evolving” as businesses demand evermore-accurate and detailed weather forecasting to try and stay ahead of severe storms. Analysts put the annual weather prediction market at around $3 billion and growing.
The wild card in all this development is, of course, our polarized national politics. There are still people who don’t believe in climate change, or don’t believe that we caused it by burning too much fossil fuel too fast for too long, causing the planet to warm to the point where the weather has become more severe and more unpredictable — throwing whole ecosystems into turmoil.
Thorncroft says people only have to look at the data to realize what has happened. The focus right now, he says, needs to be on fixing it.
“Let’s just agree that there is a problem,” Thorncroft said. “Let’s just agree there are going to be certain portions of the public that are going to argue over it.”