New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled New York City’s Green New Deal, showing off his plans of turning the Big Apple into the Green Apple on this Earth Day. “We’re going to ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers, which are incredibly inefficient,” the Mayor said to reporters this morning. “The City of New York, the government, which uses about as much energy in a year as do the people and business of the people in the State of Vermont, we are going to get all of our energy from renewable sources in the next five years.”
The New York City Green New Deal is a $14 billion effort aiming to cut down 30 percent of greenhouse emissions by 2030 while creating “tens of thousands of good jobs.” “Every day we wait is a day our planet gets closer to the point of no-return. New York City’s Green New Deal meets that reality head on,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement Monday. “We are confronting the same interests that created the climate crisis and deepened inequality. There’s no time to waste. We’re taking action now, before it’s too late.”
Under the guise of better weather and climate for the future, de Blasio also discussed other components of his vision for New York City’s future. The Mayor said that New York City will also guarantee health care for every New Yorker and create the universal coverage for uninsured New Yorkers, regardless of ability to pay or immigration status. Other goals include improving infrastructure like transit systems and roads, plus a $20 billion resiliency plan to address “the growing threats of coastal storms, sea-level rise, extreme heat, and increased precipitation with projects and programs across the city.”
The Green New Deal, championed by fellow New Yorker, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) in Washington, is a radical measure that called for a massive overhaul of the nation’s economy and energy use to cut emissions. The deal calls for the U.S. to shift away from fossil fuels and replace them with renewable sources such as wind and solar power. It also calls for the virtual elimination of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming by 2030. The plan is estimated to cost up to $93 trillion, or $600,000 per household, according to studies. A test vote on the proposal recently failed in the Senate with no senator voting to begin debate on the legislation.
While de Blasio described New York City’s Green New Deal as a $14billion effort, it isn’t yet clear how much the overall program will cost and what the individual cost to New York City tax payers would be.
