New York’s fossil foolishness: Rather than staving off climate change, we’re inviting disaster

It has been estimated that we have just eight years to avert the worst of the havoc that climate change can bring down on our city. These aren’t our numbers, but the calculations of the International Panel on Climate Change, which has set the clock at 2030 to avoid catastrophic climate outcomes. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether New York State is really doing all it can to avert catastrophe by supplanting fossil fuel energy with renewable energy?

Our city runs on about 8,000-11,500 megawatts of power daily. For our planet’s sake, we are in a race against the clock to build renewable energy we need; if not, we continue to fuel man-made climate change that may well lock humanity into a dystopian future we hope to avoid. And just as important for New York City, dirty fossil fuel plants have wrought havoc on power plant host communities’ local air quality for generations, making them epicenters of environmental injustice.

Western Queens has provided up to 55% of New York City’s power in the form of baseline and “peaker” plants depending on the day. If we are serious about shuttering these pollution-belching relics of the past and creating a “Renewable Row” in Astoria instead of the current “asthma alley,” it’s time for a gut check.

The reality is we need all hands on deck to green our city. That means we need to enforce Local Law 97, which retrofits our worst polluting buildings and makes them dramatically more efficient. This policy is the largest emissions reduction policy in any city anywhere in the world. However, energy efficiency alone is not sufficient to get where we need to go. New York State cannot delay at all in creating much more renewable power for the city’s electrical grid.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has approved a host of renewable projects in the past year. Together, they have the potential to deliver to the city more than 4,000 megawatts of power, which is almost half of our energy demand. That’s a big deal. These projects improve our air quality by supplanting fossil power with renewable carbon-free power, and create good union jobs. As a portfolio, this is a huge down payment on where we need to be.

Equinor Wind will bring additional renewable power to NYC by 2026 in an exciting offshore wind development that is a gamechanger. Clean Path NYC isn’t going to start transmission until about 2028, but its 1500 MW is sorely needed. Renewable Rikers is a decade away, but it is also a big part of the puzzle. Lastly, the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) that will deliver Canadian green hydropower already has its permits, and construction can start now and be online by 2025.

There are those who argue that we should go slower, more incrementally, and void CHPE because of parochial concerns. The advocates of incrementalism should sit face-to-face with the residents of Western Queens who are choking on poison air. Frankly, clean air advocates are tired of holding protests in front of dirty fossil power plants. We’d rather build renewable energy and close the power plants. Simply put, we no longer have the luxury of incremental implementation of renewables.

Will we have the courage to follow through? The state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has all the information it needs to advance this portfolio of projects that NYSERDA has cherry-picked through a statewide competition as the best projects to clean New York City’s electrical grid. It’s time for the PSC to green-light the building of the future we all need. The clock is ticking. We call upon the PSC to approve these projects; we call upon the state to draft permits for all aspects of the projects so that all the renewable energy promised to New York City by the state can be built.

CHPE, Clean Path NY, Equinor, LL97 and Renewable Rikers are all pillars in the edifice of a clean, green, renewable, and breathable New York City. Don’t leave out even one brick of the “Renewable Row” that Western Queens — and the rest of the city — needs, deserves and was promised by New York State.

Gennaro is chair of the New York City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection. Constantinides is the committee’s former chair.