addressed the challenges that we face as a city with a growing population, an inequality crisis, aging
infrastructure, as well as the risks of climate change.
OneNYC not only looked inward and set aggressive goals to address local, interconnected challenges
around climate change, poverty, and economic development – it also looked outward and recognized New
York City’s place in the global landscape of sustainable development. OneNYC was the world’s first
urban resilience strategy and provided a compelling model of how local governments can implement the
sustainable development goals. In fact, earlier this year New York City released the world’s first
voluntary local review for its efforts at achieving the global goals.
OneNYC also deepened the City’s commitment to increasing equity and addressing income inequality
across the five boroughs of New York City. As Mayor de Blasio has said, our environmental
sustainability work must walk hand in hand with our economic sustainability work in order to achieve a
truly just and fair city for all New Yorkers.
On that point, while climate change affects everyone, its impacts are not equally shared. Simply put, the
poorest and most vulnerable – who have historically contributed the least to GHG emissions – are the
hardest hit by climate change. OneNYC explicitly seeks to address the disparate environmental
conditions that have historically resulted in diminished health outcomes, economic opportunities, and
quality-of-life in some of our city’s neighborhoods. These injustices have led to public health impacts
from poor air quality, disproportionate exposure to pollution, and increased risks related to chronic
exposure to extreme heat and the urban heat island effect.
Across the globe, the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters, rising sealevels, floods, heat waves, droughts, desertification, water shortages, and the spread of tropical and
vector-borne diseases will directly and indirectly threaten human rights. We all must recognize the
urgency of this challenge and take bold action to protect the human rights imperatives of the Paris
Agreement. This is the only way forward.
IV. THE THREE PILLARS OF NYC’S CLIMATE LEADERSHIP
Today, we continue to deliver on the commitments of OneNYC and the Administration’s efforts to
urgently address climate change, fill the void of leadership left by Washington DC, and deliver results for
New Yorkers. Our work can best be summed up in three themes: sustainability, resiliency, and
accountability.
Sustainability
Our climate mitigation—or sustainability—work is focused on reducing our contribution to climate
change by cutting our greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible. In OneNYC, we committed to make
New York City the most sustainable big city in the world and a global leader in the fight against climate
change.
To accomplish this goal, we are working to keep the city on track to meet our goal of reducing greenhouse
gases 80 percent by 2050 (80x50), an effort we recently accelerated to align with the Paris Agreement’s
1.5 Celsius stretch goal. We have already achieved a 15% reduction. Getting to 80x50 means making our
buildings, the largest source of GHGs in the city, much more energy efficient, expanding renewable
energy options, sending zero waste to landfills by 2030, and improving our air quality.
2