
New York state lawmakers have agreed to pass a sweeping climate plan - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/nyregion/greenhouse-gases-ny.html
======
jseliger
It would be nice for "subway cost control" to be part of that plan:
[http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-
infrastructu...](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-
infrastructure-costs.html). Subways are among the greenest possible transport
modes and yet NYC hasn't built substantial new lines since 1940.

This is also the same city that provides copious free and heavily subsidized
parking while banning or severely limited 30-pound, highly efficient electric
vehicles: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/opinion/electric-
scooters...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/opinion/electric-scooters-
nashville.html).

I wonder how we should interpret the city's stated desires versus its actual
policies.

~~~
NovemberWhiskey
I'm surprised to hear someone say that New York City has "copious free and
heavily subsidized parking"; how does that manifest itself, exactly? Living in
Manhattan, that's not really my experience.

~~~
donjoe
Does your car parking cost as much as renting a flat/sqm? I bet it does not.

Where I live, parking space costs you about 15€/sqm/month on a single floor/no
floor since it's 'public space'. A flat is avg. 22€/sqm/month and buildings in
general come with 6 floors: we're closer to 6*22€/sqm/month for living
space...

~~~
lostlogin
I don’t want to argue for cars, but a square of something you can park on
should definitely be cheaper per unit area than something you live in. I don’t
think I’ve ever parked anywhere I’d happily live.

~~~
emiliobumachar
In expensive real estate areas land costs should dwarf construction costs.

~~~
lostlogin
This isn’t the issue though, the actual comparison is car park versus living
space, and which can be built cheaper.

------
NeedMoreTea
Marvellous. Is the ball actually starting to roll?

Oh, wait, it's a plan to form a committee that issues recommendations of how
to do it in two years. Erm. So more aspiration than plan then.

Still, the broad aim is roughly in line with what the nations who've committed
recently have signed up to, with actual plans. Different dates for net zero:
Finland(2035), Ireland(2050), Norway(2030).

Oh and the UK(2050) who did so comically badly via soundbite only from Theresa
but then immediately disagreed with what the committee on climate change plan
had recommended, and the Chancellor who essentially said was too expensive to
bother fixing anyway.

Where's the follow up to the UN Paris Climate Summit? London, 2020. Bloody
typical.

~~~
droithomme
> it's a plan to form a committee that issues recommendations of how to do it

Yup.

------
perfunctory
> There are also numerous questions about whether the energy, real estate and
> business communities can adapt by 2050, and how much it would cost to do so.
> Business groups in the state had derided the bill as impractical and
> potentially disastrous for companies forced to move to green energy sources.

If you are old enough to remember what the economy looked like 30 years ago,
in 1989, think about how much it has transformed since then. Quite impressive,
isn't it. If "business communities" and "business groups" think they can't
adapt by 2050 (30 years from now) they show the complete lack of imagination.
Sigh.

------
trothamel
You can see the realtime mix of power in NY at:

[https://www.nyiso.com/real-time-dashboard](https://www.nyiso.com/real-time-
dashboard)

Right now, we're over 50% nuclear + hydro, though I suspect this goal will be
harder to achieve when Indian Point shuts down.

~~~
Spooky23
Also remember all of the nuclear plants bleed cash and now require direct
subsidy to operate. New York has lots of challenges ahead as the
environmentalists hate gas and the NIMBY types and farmers hate solar/wind.

~~~
p1mrx
The atmosphere doesn't care about our green paper rectangles. If our
rectangles don't care about the atmosphere, then that's an implementation bug.

~~~
jonfw
Money isn't green paper rectangles, it is a store of value. It represents
tradeoffs. It represents man-hours, other investments into our future that we
could make, etc.

Pretending money isn't that important is just an ignorant thing to do.

------
8bitsrule
If the article is correct, that's a 10% move (60% to 70%) from fossil to green
over a 10-year period. That's hardly a breakneck speed (though NY managed only
8% between 1990 and 2015).

Nonetheless, demanding that _all_ carbon producers get serious is a no-BS
approach. Too bad that the cost of doing nothing had to become so obvious.

~~~
dfilppi
The cost of doing nothing is nothing.

~~~
abootstrapper
The cost of doing nothing is climate change and all that comes with it.

------
droithomme
2050 is more than 30 years from now. The politicians that voted for this will
be long gone many years before this fantasy needs to be completed, at which
time perhaps we'll be out of fossil fuels and it will be moot.

------
bcp2384
Do we have until 2050 for cities to go net neutral?

~~~
leereeves
It's a political stunt. They put the deadline far enough in the future that
they don't actually have to do anything.

~~~
saalweachter
Would you believe it if they said they were going to completely eliminate net
CO2 emissions in 5-10 years?

~~~
karthikb
No, but you could say that in order to hit 0 by 2050, you need to be at X by
2025 and Y by 2030...then commit to those.

And of course, the article states: "New York will be required to get 70
percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and shift entirely
to carbon-free power a decade later."

------
dfeojm-zlib
Virtual-signaling, small-scale nonsense to claim they're "helping."

CCS (and SRM) at scale (tens of trillion$, on the order of the pointless MIC
cash-grabs in the Middle East) need to be expended to reduce CO2 to pre-
industrial levels (280-300 ppm). Cities and states cannot and shouldn't handle
this.. international- and national-level collaboration to standardize,
strategize and deploy solutions are the most appropriate avenues.

