The New York Climate Action council recently held a meeting to update its work on the state’s climate goals.
In July 2019 New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, generally referred to as the Climate Act, was signed. It requires greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 40 percent by 2030 and at least 85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. It created a council to develop a plan to meet the mandated targets.
The Climate Council has been holding a series of meetings as it drafts a final Climate Scoping Plan.
Co-Chair Basil Seggos, Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner, noted they have been working on the plan for more than two years.
“This is a plan, a very important plan that will guide us into 2023 and beyond as we look to undertake a series of programs and regulatory initiatives really to carry out this law.”
Council Co-Chair Doreen Harris, the NYSERDA president and CEO, continued telling participants that work on revising the draft plan during the meeting would focus on potential edits to chapters pertaining to transitioning from fossil fuels.
“What we’re talking about today is a continuation of the discussion of the edits that staff have drafted based on the feedback from the council and on the summaries of public comments and the work products from the sub-groups. Today we’re going to be talking about the gas transition, the buildings, health, industry, economy-wide, electricity and climate justice chapters.”
Department of Public Service Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Implementation Jessica Waldorf reviewed the discussions and recommendations regarding terminology. Some members wanted clarity on terms including fossil natural gas.
“A few of the members raised different concerns. One was about what that would mean to a lay person that's reading this scoping plan who may be more familiar with the term natural gas. Another was concerned about the fact that it's not a term defined in statute so that if we were going to use fossil gas, we would have to create a glossary or some sort of definition. Perhaps we could, as a council, consider adding the word natural within the term fossil gas. And that way you're drawing a distinction between renewable natural gas, natural gas to clarify that we're specifically looking at fossil natural gas and that's the real concern that we're trying to address within the gas system transition plan.”
Council member and Imagine Power LLC Principal Raya Salter supports including language regarding the viability, application and cost of new technologies.
“I think it's time to acknowledge, really now that we're getting to the end of the plan, that the fossil gas industry wants to heck or high water, compliant or not, fill our homes with untested, unknown fuels that will maintain their business model and that we need to have this process be in the public interest and not the private interest.”
As questions were raised about the clarity of the language, NYSERDA General Counsel and co-counsel to the Climate Council Pete Costello noted that the scoping plan is not a legally binding document.
“It will inform later follow on legal actions. And so the important thing from the legal perspective is that there's clarity in order to inform those later legal actions.”
New York’s Climate Action Council will meet again on December 5th and then vote on the final plan on December 19th.
