Adil Trehan, adil.trehan@sierraclub.org, 202-630-7275
New York – On Monday, Sierra Club launched a statewide digital ad campaign and video highlighting the importance of the Climate Action Council Scoping Plan to meeting the critical climate and clean energy goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
As New Yorkers face floods, heat waves, and skyrocketing utility bills from volatile natural gas prices, leadership from the state Climate Action Council (CAC) to finalize an ambitious, detailed, and time-bound plan to reduce emissions from all sectors of New York’s economy is more important than ever.
The video and ad campaign call attention to public health harms like elevated asthma rates and unnatural, climate-intensified disasters caused by burning fossil fuels in our homes, cars, and power plants – and points to renewable energy and electrification as the solutions that must be championed by the CAC’s climate plan.
The campaign will direct New Yorkers to take action, sending a message to the CAC to take a stronger stand on sources of pollution and include language in the plan that specifies regulation of companies contributing to it. In addition, the campaign calls for clear metrics and intermediate benchmarks in a number of sectors, including phasing out gas from new buildings by 2024, year by year goals for scaling up procurement of renewable energy and battery storage to achieve 100% zero-emissions electricity by 2040, and a suite of policies to reduce vehicle miles traveled and expand charging access for electric vehicles.
“Passage of the CLCPA marked a major turning point in New York’s reckoning with the climate crisis and environmental injustice– but without a final Scoping Plan that implements the law by taking the necessary steps in the near term to stop the expansion of our reliance on fossil fuels and start dramatically scaling up renewable energy and electrification, the CLCPA will just be an empty commitment,” said Allison Considine, Senior Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club.
“A scoping plan with delays or half measures would be unconscionable– it’s now almost 3 years since the CLCPA passed, and the Climate Action Council and Governor Hochul must be accountable to the people of New York, who have spent decades choking on polluted air and left with no option but to rely on fossil fuels at the expense of people and the planet. They must shake off the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has on energy planning and climate decisions and do what is necessary to make the CLCPA’s goals a reality, or risk undermining New York’s claim to climate leadership and our future.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.