Mayor Bill de Blasio Pivots Toward a Sustainable New York City

Nine months into his mayoralty, with over 300,000 climate marchers having massed in Manhattan, and a U.N. climate meeting just finished, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio decided the time was right to renew the city's sustainability effort.  The mayor and his team have announced the goal of reducing New York City's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2050.  The mayor deserves high praise for articulating these new goals.  The major focus of the program is increasing the energy efficiency of our built environment.   According to New York Times reporter Matt Flegenheimer:

New York would become the largest city in the world to make the commitment, according to the city's leaders.  Though the proposal is likely to rankle some residential and commercial building owners, who will bear a portion of its cost, officials have framed the issue in part as an extension of the citywide focus on income inequality since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in January.  High energy costs, the de Blasio administration argues, amount to a regressive tax, because lower-income residents by and large pay a higher share of their rent for energy than wealthier residents, and often live in less-efficient buildings...Such ambitions, though, will come at a significant near-term price:  at least $1 billion of its capital funding alone will be devoted to enhancing the city-owned buildings over the next decade, the administration said, excluding the cost of the private building alterations and other changes.

With this week's emphasis on climate and environment, and the mayor's long background as one of the city's sharpest political minds, the timing of this announcement is no surprise. However, in addition to the words of the new and far-reaching policy design, we are starting to see some movement in staffing the city's sustainability offices and working to integrate sustainability into the mayor's broader economic policy priorities.  These are important signals that the mayor is about to get serious about sustainability.

Mayor Bill de Blasio Pivots Toward a Sustainable New York City