Environmentalists and clean energy experts touted 2015 as a turning point – for better or worse – in the first against climate change. As Pope Francis and President Barack Obama established their initiatives and support to reduce carbon emissions globally, Mayor Bill de Blasio did not shy away from the debate, either.

Last year, he released OneNYC, the four-year update to PlaNYC which set sweeping goals to curb city emissions 80 percent by 2050 and reduce the amount of city waste sent to landfills by 90 percent by 2030. Since introducing the “One City: Built to Last” policy paper in September 2014, a working group of energy, real estate, and environmental experts has been meeting to come up with a series of recommendations on how to reduce building emissions.

Notably, the city has established a “retrofit accelerator” and has helped fund the nonprofit Building Energy Exchange to convince landlords that retrofits can be economically viable in the long term, as the money saved on energy costs will pay for capital improvements. The accelerator also serves as a “one-stop shop” for information on energy audits, retrofits and financing.

De Blasio’s green agenda making slow but steady progress
Politico New York
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