New York State Future Emissions & Energy Regulations

New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA)

While the future of building emissions and energy in New York City is the Climate mobilization Act, the future of emissions and energy policy for New York State is the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The act passed the State Legislature in June, 2019 and aims to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions much like OneNYC 2050 does for New York City. The CLCPA seeks to eliminate all CO2-producing sources (e.g. coal, oil, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, biomass) in the State. The most significant differences between the two plans is that the CLCPA calls for at least 70% of statewide electric generation to come from renewable energy systems by 2030, “zero emissions” from the statewide electrical system by 2040 and no importation of any electricity generated by fossil fuels outside New York State (called “leakage”) so as not to shift New York emissions to another state or country.

Climate Action Council
To accomplish its stated goals, the CLCPA creates a 22-member “New York State Climate Action Council” which is directed to:

• Present within 2 years a statewide scoping plan describing the actions needed to meet the act’s emissions goals
• Convene a minimum of six advisory panels to aid the council in developing the scoping plan with such panels including:
  • Transportation,
  • Energy intensive and trade-exposed industries,
  • Land-use and local government,
  • Energy efficiency and housing,
  • Power generation, and
  • Agriculture and forestry.
• Convene a “Just Transition Working Group”
• Consult with the permanent Environmental Justice Advisory Group (formed under NYS S2385)
• Regularly provide a variety of reports and act to support and improve emissions regulations and reductions, various emissions-related programs, alternative actions, disadvantaged communities, etc.

The Scoping Plan
The scoping plan developed by the Climate Action Council is to be a roadmap for the reduction, elimination or offset of all the State’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by the year 2050. The emissions goals for statewide GHG emissions are:

• 2030: 60% of 1990 emissions and
• 2050: 15% of 1990 emissions (with carbon offsets of no more than 15% of 1990 levels) .

This language is a bit confusing with the references to 1990 emissions levels, however there is no confusion about the plan’s goals. Zero percent carbon emissions mean zero emissions regardless of the base year used for measurement. The goal of the scoping plan is to achieve zero carbon emissions statewide by 2050 with an allowance for a 15% statewide offset of GHG emissions where fossil fuels are absolutely required. Emergency backup generators might be an example of situations where fossil fuel is absolutely necessary.

At a minimum, the measures and actions considered in the scoping plan are to include:

• Performance-based standards for sources of greenhouse gas emissions, including but not limited to sources in the transportation, building, industrial, commercial, and agricultural sectors,
• Measures to reduce emissions from the electricity sector by displacing fossil-fuel fired electricity with renewable electricity or energy efficiency,
• Land-use and transportation planning measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles,
• Measures to achieve long-term carbon sequestration and/or promote best management practices in land use, agriculture and forestry.
• Measures to achieve:
  • 6 gigawatts of distributed solar energy capacity installed in the state by 2025
  • 9 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity installed by 2035
  • A statewide energy efficiency goal of 185 billion kBtus of energy reduction from the 2025 forecast
  • 3 gigawatts of statewide energy storage capacity by 2030
• Measures to promote the electrification of personal and freight transport and other strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector
• Measures to achieve reductions in energy use in existing residential or commercial buildings, including the beneficial electrification of water and space heating in buildings, establishing appliance efficiency standards, strengthening building energy codes, requiring annual building energy benchmarking, disclosing energy efficiency in home sales, and expanding the ability of state facilities to utilize performance contracting
• Recommendations to aid in the transition of the state workforce and the rapidly emerging clean energy industry
• Measures to achieve healthy forests that support clean air and water, biodiversity, and sequester carbon
• Measures to limit the use of chemicals, substances or products that contribute to global climate change when released to the atmosphere, but are not intended for end-use combustion
• Mechanisms to limit emission leakage (importation of fossil fuel-generated electricity)
• Verifiable, enforceable and voluntary emissions reduction measures.

The CLCPA summarizes itself as:

“…the adoption of a state energy plan establishing clean energy goals for the year 2030 aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emission levels by 40% from 1990 levels, producing 70% of electricity from renewable sources, increasing energy efficiency from 2012 levels by 23% and the additional expressed goal of reducing 100% of the electricity sector's greenhouse gas emissions by 2040”.

The following puts some of CLCPA's major elements into perspective.

Increasing Energy Efficiency
The energy efficiency goal of reducing 185 billion kBtus from the 2025 statewide energy forecast represents a reduction of nearly 11% in for electricity, natural gas, and delivered fuels (oil and propane) consumed by the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors.

1990 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Level
A 2015 report, by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) reported the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions levels as:

• 1990: 238 MMtCO2e*
• 2015: 218 MMtCO2e

* Millions of metric tons of the equivalent of CO2

The CLCPA's emissions 2030 target of 60% of 1990 levels is therefore:

               238 * 0.6 = 143 MMtCO2e or
                218 - 143 = 75 MMtCO2e or
          a 32% reduction from 2015 levels.

To give 143 or 75 MMtCO2e some context, the following data comes from a 2017 European Commission study:

CO2 Emissions (millions of metric tons)

	1990	2017	Change
U.S.	5,085	5,107	0.4%
China	2,397	10,877	353%

Population (millions)

	1990	2017	Change
U.S.	250	325	30%
China	1,172	1,409	20%

Emissions per Capita (metric tons/person)

	1990	2017	Change
U.S.	20.3	15.7	-23%
China	2.0	7.7	277%