Announcer: Listener-supported WNYC studios.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. A big week is getting underway in New York, in case you didn't already know this, the conversion of-- convergence I should say, of Climate Week NYC and the annual gathering of world leaders for the UN General Assembly. The UN gathering will include what they call a Climate Ambition Summit next Wednesday. Climate Week NYC events, independent of the UN, will include a big march in the city on Sunday called the March to End Fossil Fuels.

In fact, climate action is taking place globally, time to coincide with the UN gathering. The Guardian cites some 200 global climate actions taking place this week in countries including Bolivia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Austria. We'll be doing a climate-related segment every day on this show next week, but while most of the climate policy debates making headlines are focused on national and international goals and pushback, there's at least one taking place locally in New York City right now.

Mayor Adams is looking for a slower implementation of a climate bill that City Council passed in 2019 with the unsexy title of Local Law 97. Local Law 97 is aimed largely at buildings in the city with more than 25,000 square feet of floor space. Now this matters a lot because the city says 70% of the carbon emissions in New York City come from buildings. If you think carbon emissions come from cars and power plants and agro-business and things like that, well yes but in New York City 70% of emissions come from buildings.

This week, Adams released a blueprint that he calls Getting 97 Done, but the headline coming out of that is that the Mayor wants to give many buildings a few extra years to begin implementing the changes the law requires. Gothamist quotes environmental experts who say the new plan will weaken the law's enforcement powers by giving many building owners an extra three years to meet carbon reduction deadlines. Adams' position is he just wants to save the owners some money on fines that they could put toward meeting the carbon reduction goals which will be enforced by the end of the decade, in fact, by 2027.

Let's see what's up here with New York City's centerpiece climate law. With us now, the city's Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner, Rohit Aggarwala who also has the title of Chief Climate Officer in the Adams administration. Commissioner, thanks for coming on as Climate Week NYC gets ready to get going. Welcome back to WNYC.

Commissioner Aggarwala: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me back. Good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Before we get into the specific controversy about not enforcing the law next year as originally planned, would you like to give our listeners some background on how and why New York City buildings produce most of the city's climate pollution?

Commissioner Aggarwala: Well, I will. I've got to say I have to take issue basically with most of your introduction which I think misinterprets everything that we've put forward about how to implement this law. To back up then, Local Law 97 was enacted in 2019 and what it does is it sets a series of limits for buildings over 25,000 square feet. It covers about 50,000 buildings around the city that although they're only 5% of the city's structures, they're well over half of the city's carbon emissions and building-related carbon emissions.

It puts them basically on a carbon diet. Based on the building type and the size of the building, each building is allocated a carbon limit that they have to meet that goes down. It starts in 2024. There's another much more aggressive target in 2030, 2035, 2040, and then on a path to zero carbon in 2050. Then as you say, the law indicates a penalty that is based on the price of carbon. It imposes a penalty of $268 per ton for every ton of carbon that a building is over its limit.

Brian Lehrer: Right. I want you to take us back even further. Before we get into the policy, just talk about climate pollution from buildings because we've talked about this before on this show, but a lot of listeners probably are still like, "Wait, it's my building that produces or the aggregate of buildings in New York City that produce 70% of our carbon emissions? Why? How?"

Commissioner Aggarwala: No, that's a good point and a good reminder. Yes. At the end of the day, power plants, of course, are largely the places where we're burning natural gas, but the decision to use electricity is taking place in buildings, right? Power plants don't generate electricity just for the sake of it, they generate it when you turn on the light switch or you run the air conditioner, charge your electric vehicle, or whatever. That's what turns these power plants on and so electricity consumption is almost entirely driven by buildings, by lighting, by heating, by cooling, by computers, by all those things going on in buildings.

The other main source of carbon emissions in the city is actually the largely natural gas that we burn inside our buildings primarily for heating and cooling. Most large apartment buildings in New York City have a natural gas-fired boiler that provides the hot water for your shower and your dishwasher. That is another very large source of carbon emissions for New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Local Law 97 passed by City Council in 2019 is supposed to change some of that. Remind people of the basics, how?

Commissioner Aggarwala: As I said, the law establishes that every building that is over a certain size, basically a building that might have you know 50 apartments or more would qualify. It's given based on its type, is it an office building, is it an industrial building, is it a hospital, is it a residential building, it's given a carbon allocation based on its size and building type. That carbon allocation kicks in in 2024 and then it ratchets down. It's got a big jump to 2030 and then again down in 2035, 2040, and on to zero in 2050. The way the law works--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Commissioner Aggarwala: Oh sorry.

Brian Lehrer: You go.

Commissioner Aggarwala: The way the law works is at the end of the year so we say it kicks in in 2024, really what a building has to do is that at the end of 2024, in 2025, they file a report with the Department of Buildings that says, "Here's all the energy I used, here's the way we calculate carbon emissions based on rules that the Department of Buildings has already established, and here's what my allocation was." If I'm under my allocation, that's the end of the story. If I'm over the allocation, I am potentially liable for a fine.

Brian Lehrer: As we've been reporting, and I think this is fair to the administration, the loosened enforcement deadlines are only one of four main points in the plan. The others are getting the word out about government funding that's available to help with compliance, workshops, offering technical support, and working with Con Edison to decarbonize their energy systems. Can you talk about the ConEd piece? Listeners, we are going to open up the phones here for people who live in various kinds of residential buildings.

Even if you're involved with an office building or some kind of commercial building. I see a text already coming in that asks, what can a small non-profit low-income co-op do about the fuel oil-burning boiler that provides heat and hot water? We're going to tackle those very practical questions at the on-the-ground level. For many of you who may be concerned about this, in fact, I'll open up the phones right now by giving you the phone number which is 212-433-WNYC. As always call or text 212-433-9692.

I know some smaller co-ops have concerns, for example, and maybe others or anyone else with any climate-related question for New York City's Chief Climate Officer and Environment Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. As calls are starting to come in, do you want to talk about the ConEd piece? I see this could include converting some of the city's sewage and food waste to energy.

Commissioner Aggarwala: Yes, there's a couple of things here. First of all, if we can decarbonize the electricity and create some targeted renewable natural gas, we can actually reduce the carbon footprint of all buildings. That makes it easier for buildings covered by Local Law 97 to comply. We've got to work with the state because the state's largely in charge of decarbonizing the electricity grid.

As you say, we have an opportunity here in New York. A lot of buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn are served by the ConEd steam system, which is a centrally produced source of steam, which actually means that many of the buildings in midtown Manhattan, lower Manhattan, downtown Brooklyn, don't even have boilers because they're already getting that steam from ConEd takes a lot of energy to heat steam. That's a big source of carbon emissions. We've seen an opportunity, for example, at EPS wastewater treatment plants. The only thing you can do with sewage is you digest it and that emits methane.

We're starting the process of capturing that methane so it's not just being flared into the environment for no value, but actually using it to help decarbonize what we think are these difficult-to-electrify uses. It's not a good idea just to use that as an excuse to keep the natural gas grid on forever, but for a while, while we are working to de to electrify these various uses, that could make a real contribution. I'd also like to point out though, it's vitally important for us to make sure that the resources exist for buildings to do this. A large part of what we've released this week was really the plan to do that.

We have committed as the city to expand the J-51 tax credit so that low-income residential buildings, including low and moderate-value co-ops and condos, can get a property tax abatement to cover a large portion of the cost of complying with Local Law 97. Though the state legislature enacted that law to extend J-51 earlier in the year, we are hoping the governor will sign it. The City Council has to adopt it for New York. Then New York City government has to write the rules for what's eligible. We've committed to making deep carbon retrofits eligible for J-51. That will help 1300 low and moderate-income co-ops and condos around the city.

A lot of people think that the big carbon emitters are only flashy office building in midtown owned by a billionaire. In fact, there are these 1300 buildings that will have to do work for 2030 that are in Queens in the Bronx, in Brooklyn. These are not necessarily where rich people live. These are where doctors and teachers and lawyers live and police officers and people who are working for the city government. I had a couple of conversations with union leaders who, of course, are very excited about the fact that if we can raise all this money and get this law implemented, it could create we estimate 140,000 jobs.

They also point out that a lot of their members live in those middle-income co-ops and condos. They are concerned about how easy it is to comply. I do want to mention though you've talked, again about loosened enforcement and I take issue with them. While a couple of advocates have pointed out that yes, we've offered the potential for a two-year delay. They've ignored the fact that we've designed that to come with strings attached. The 2030 targets are much more aggressive than the 2024 targets. I think of the 2024 targets as a dress rehearsal.

A building that's out of compliance for 2024 is much more out of compliance for 2030. If they are likely to miss their 2024 target, they are almost certainly going to miss their 2030 target. What we have proposed is not just a blanket two-year delay, that's the way it's been characterized and that's inaccurate. What we have put forward is the idea that a building could enter into a settlement agreement if they are in violation of the law in 2024 that would require them not only to come into compliance with the 2024 target by 2026. A two-year delay on the 2024 target, but they would have to have a binding work plan for how to come into compliance with their 2030 target by 2030.

We would, for example, be able to not only monitor but enforce. If they stop work in 2027, 2028 in reaching their 2030 target, we can go ahead and find them in 2027, 2028, not waiting until 2031 when we find out, oh, we missed our carbon limit in 2030. That may be perceived as being more lenient. The point of this law is not to levy fines. The point of this law is to get carbon out of the atmosphere. We think that this approach is the surest way, not only to get the near-term goal of the 2024 targets with a two-year delay but actually to get them much more important and much more difficult reductions of 2030 on time. I'd like to point out the 2030 targets will result in four times as much carbon reduction as the 2024 targets.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you laid all that out and I appreciate it and I get all that and I actually want to reinforce it to the listeners so that they understand the complexity here below the headline. Tell me if I'm summarizing some of what you said right. I knew this going in. The condition for deferred enforcement is that the buildings not in compliance demonstrate a good faith effort to reduce emissions by showing progress toward decarbonization, sharing a plan to reach emission reduction targets, and agreeing to retroactive enforcement, in fact, meaning they'd have to pay these 2024 fines anyway if they fail to follow through.

You must be very frustrated with all the media because this is not just WNYC and Gothamist, the New York Post reported it this way, Crain's reported it this way. I've been scouring the media over this issue. The headline everywhere is many buildings are going to get some extra years before this is enforced.

Commissioner Aggarwala: I'll be honest, Brian. Yes, you're totally right. I appreciate you're laying all that out because what you said was accurate. It is frustrating that, particularly on this issue, it has been painted as, are you being tough or are you being weak as opposed to are you being smart and trying to get the job done? What we are trying to do and what Mayor Adams is trying to do on carbon emissions is getting the job done.

Brian Lehrer: This is yet another condition. I see that buildings that take advantage of this delayed enforcement will be barred from buying renewable energy credits. Can you explain those credits?

Commissioner Aggarwala: There's available in the market, it's been there for, I don't know, 10 or 20 years, the concept of renewable energy credit. What that means is basically if somebody has a windmill or a solar panel or something, they can sell you the carbon offset to say, "I'm taking credit for that renewable power." Businesses and others will use that to say, "I'm carbon neutral. I don't know where my electricity is coming from, but I bought all of these RECs, these renewable energy credits to counteract my energy consumption." It's like if you take an airline flight and you buy carbon offsets, you plant trees instead of not emitting the carbon from the plane. Local Law 97 actually allows RECs. The law enacted by the City Council allows RECs.

it does place a couple of conditions on them. It can't be any REC. It can't be a windmill in California. It has to be new renewable power that feeds directly into New York City. I think this is a really smart component of the law. There are no RECs available to comply with that provision right now because we have not had new renewable power plugged into New York City yet. We've got a couple of projects underway. The state is leading this effort. The Champlain Hudson Power Express, which New York City is actually the anchor not investor, but we're the anchor customer of. New York City government operations will get all of its electricity from CHPE as it's called when it comes into service we hope in 2026, 2027. That brings hydropower down from Quebec.

There's another clean path, which is going to bring wind and solar power from Central New York. These aren't in service yet. There are no Local Law 97 qualifying RECs. Because the law allows them to be used, we thought what made sense was to allow buildings that choose to pay fines until the RECs come into availability to go ahead and do that. If that's what your plan is, you don't need the two-year delay because in fact, if you're going to do that, you're just going to do that. The only idea behind this good faith effort is if a building got a late start, if maybe it doesn't have a sophisticated management team, it needs to figure out how to do the work. It's getting bad advice.

One of the things we find a lot building owners come to us and say, "We can't comply. It'll cost us a billion dollars to fix our building to comply with local Law 97." I'd say, "How'd you come to that number?" They say, "Oh, my boiler guy thinks it's going to be really expensive." It's like, no, no, no. You can't just say I heard it. You've got to get technical assistance. There are a lot of ways to decarbonize buildings. Decarbonization is getting cheaper and cheaper every year. That's where we have to force these buildings to take the time to do the work, to get this right.

Brian Lehrer: I see the city is offering technical assistance. That's one of the four points in the Mayor's Getting 97 Done plan. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking about Mayor Adam's new plan for implementing Local Law 97. The law passed in 2019 in New York City that's supposed to help decarbonize buildings in the city. Buildings are said to account for 70% of New York City's carbon emissions. Our guest is the city's environment Commissioner and Chief Climate Officer, Rohit Aggarwala. Robert in Brooklyn, who's on his co-op board. You're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in, Robert. Hello.

Robert: Hey, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I'm on the board of a large building in Brooklyn Heights, 300-plus apartments, and we're dealing with this all the time, Local Law 97, struggling to understand what we need to do. We hired an energy consultant, which might be what your guest was talking about, getting bad advice. There's only so many light bulbs we can change and mandate new stoves be electric and those kinds of things. At some point, it's the big kahuna is the boiler. With a fairly new boiler that has been working well for us, well, then you start to look into, well, what needs to be done to get into compliance, so we don't go broke.

Then the fix of a new boiler significantly raises maintenance and depletes a reserve fund. Even in a building like ours, which is in fairly good shape financially. We are confused. We are very frustrated. We would like to be in compliance, but you have your maintenances are going to go up fairly significantly to get this done. Then kicking it down the road a couple of years. I don't know. We are a little lost. Tell me what we're doing wrong. How are we not seeing this?

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner?

Commissioner Aggarwala: Well, thank you. Robert, look, there's a lot of work that's going to have to happen across the city to decarbonize. It's necessary because we've got to save this planet. As DEP commissioner, I also get the phone calls every time we have a massive rainstorm or something and we get flooding in the streets. That's getting worse. We can see it in the data how New York City's flooding problems have gotten worse every year for the last several years due to climate change. Unfortunately, the costs are going to come for us all. Now, a lot of what we've done in this Getting 97 Done plan is exactly to try to figure out how to help buildings like yours, Robert. There are a couple of things that we have.

First of all, I don't know if you've already used it, but I would encourage you to contact the New York City Accelerator. They're a great resource. It's a technical helpline that is funded by the city that can identify programs and subsidies that you may be eligible for. There's a lot of money out there from the federal government. We actually calculated that there's $625 million from the Inflation Reduction Act that New York City buildings will be eligible for as they work to come into compliance for Local Law 97. If you're in Brooklyn Heights, you may not be a J51-eligible building, but as I said, that tax break should basically come into effect next year to cover work being done starting in 2024, 2025.

Then one of the biggest opportunities we identified is the State's Public Service Commission has just put out an order requiring the utilities like ConEd and NYSERDA, which is a state entity that does a lot of the energy efficiency work around the state to propose $5 billion in programs and subsidies between 2026 and 2030, which is exactly when buildings like yours would have to do a lot of work to come into compliance for 2030. There are very few buildings that actually have to replace a boiler to come into compliance with 2024. We are trying to convince the state and the utilities to direct a lot of that $5 billion pot, particularly to multi-family buildings that have to do deep retrofits in order to comply with Local Law 97.

The final thing I'll say to you is we have seen that not every consultant who is out there doing what they call Local Law 97 compliance work is really as technically competent as they ought to be or as imaginative. There are so many companies that have emerged. One of the great things about this law is it is calling into being a climate tech industry here in New York, and you've got companies like BlocPower, like Kelvin that have developed innovative business practices that can reduce the cost in a building like yours. I'm happy to have through Brian or something, happy to talk with you directly about your specific building and offer you what ideas I have.

Brian Lehrer: Robert, if you'd like, we'll take him up on that offer and take your contact information off the air to give to the commissioner's office. It sounds like you want to do that.

Robert: Yes, we will. I would love that. Thank you so much, commissioner. Really appreciate it. I think it's just you hire a consultant and you don't know what kind of advice you're getting. I'm not saying the consultant we hired dropped out of the sky to just for the money grab, but all these things you're telling me we were not aware of and we would. Thank you. Yes. Would love to be in touch with you guys.

Brian Lehrer: Robert, can I ask just as an example, how many apartments are in your co-op and what do you think the total dollar cost to the co-op will be, let's say, by 2030 to comply with this law?

Robert: Well, 300 departments. Also a number of townhouses and a commercial, a large commercial aspect to the property. I'm not an engineer, and we don't have a full-on engineer on the board. We don't have that number yet. We just know it sounds scary and it could very well be scary. That's why getting good information from somebody who's competent and really knows what they're doing and is not just here to drain co-ops. I would imagine a smaller building that has tight margins, maybe smaller or no reserves are going to have an even harder time. We're lucky big building we have a lot of finance here, but I can't imagine a small building would have an easy time understanding this.

Brian Lehrer: Robert, thank you. Thank you very much for your call. We have a number of people representing small co-ops who are calling in with similar questions. We're not going to have time to go to all of them. I hope we have time in this segment to take at least one more, but we're also getting pushback. On the other side, commissioner, so a listener texts, "It's very frustrating to hear the Mayor's climate commissioner try to bully a journalist into downplaying the fact that the mayor is putting real estate developers' interests ahead of the planet." Some people still feel that.

Another one on that side writes, "Pushback from companies like Cushman Wakefield and Vornado will cut into this pushback from the financial sector will also cut into this, and as usual, the brunt of enforcement will be levied on those with the least political power. Politics will cause additional delays. Isn't it true?" Sorry, it ends with the question, "Isn't it true that politics will cause additional delays as deadlines approach?" What would you say to the skeptics out there who hear the way you laid out what this particular deadline loosening, whatever word you want to use is and think, "Oh, here we go, 2024 is coming. They're pushing back the 2024 deadline under pressure from the real estate industry. Let's see what happens when we get to the 2027 deadline"?

Commissioner Aggarwala: Well, look if people aren't going to believe you, they're not going to believe you. I think what we have been very clear about is that we are prioritizing the fulfillment of this law. The law, when it was enacted, it was called the Climate Mobilization Act. It was not called the Climate Punishment Act. The point is to get the work done. I think you just heard with Robert's building, and you mentioned smaller co-ops, and buildings that are really struggling, this isn't about the big buildings. They will either choose to pay the fine or they'll get the best technical advice and they'll do it. This is really about the struggle to help multi-family buildings comply with the law and decarbonize.

Interestingly enough, the multi-family buildings actually have the most difficult time complying with this law the way it was written. Because in commercial buildings, most of the energy consumed is electricity. In residential buildings, most of the electricity is consumed in natural gas. The state is working to decarbonize the electrical system. There is no way fully to decarbonize the natural gas system. At some point, like in Robert's building, whether it is a constellation of window heat pumps and things like that that could be decentralized, there is probably going to have to be an electric boiler in most buildings future.

That's an expensive investment, which is again, why we need to focus on getting the money, getting the funding, getting the programs, particularly for low-income buildings.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to take a break. We're going to come back. We'll take another phone call or two for New York City's Chief Climate Officer and Environment Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala. I also want to ask you some other Climate Week questions off the specific topic of Local Law 97. You said some really interesting things recently and in the past, and I want to get into a couple of those. Stay with us as we continue. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with New York City's Chief Climate Officer and Environment Commissioner, Rohit Aggarwala on Mayor Adam's new plan or at least his new implementation plan for Local Law 97, which was passed in 2019 aimed primarily at getting carbon pollution down from buildings, buildings the city says account for 70% of the carbon emissions in New York City. Let's talk to another person living, I think, in a smaller co-op than our previous caller. Peter in Washington Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Peter.

Peter: Hi, Brian. Hello, Commissioner. I'm with the HDFC Coalition. We support the mandate, but look [inaudible 00:31:34] something of an unfunded mandate. We're all in favor of reducing carbon footprints and reducing our energy bills going forward, but we think one of the key things is to stimulate lower-income and affordable-income co-ops to get out the gate. That means some kind of a tax credit for that first consultant so that they don't have to pay this out of pocket, and then access to low-income loans without things like regulatory agreements may be funded by HDC or NYSERDA bonds for the actual work that needs to be done.

Two other things that might be helpful, one is reducing or eliminating sales tax on replacement windows or parts for this as well as sales tax on the work for it. That could cut the budget by as much as 8% or 10%, which is a huge deal for affordable-income buildings. The other thing is simplifying the whole installation of solar power on roofs of buildings. It's still very complicated to work with ConEd on uptake agreements and other things. I just want to throw that out too that we're really behind the whole concept of this, but it still appears to be an unfunded mandate for a lot of affordable income co-ops and probably regular income co-ops as well.

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner.

Commissioner Aggarwala: Well, thank you. Again, I think what you're describing is the challenge that we are trying to figure out how to help with. You've got some ideas, a couple of which I hadn't thought of, which I'm certainly going to take into account and see if there's anything we can do on that front, but I'll reiterate that I believe, and forgive me, I'm not an expert on housing, but I believe you'd be eligible for J-51. That should be a big opportunity for you. As you point out, you'd still require the financing. I make the same offer I made to the previous caller that WNYC can relay your contact information to me, and I'm happy to talk to you myself and have the New York City Accelerator talk to you.

A couple of things come to mind. Number one is NYSERDA, this New York State entity does have a program it calls FlexTech. It's an odd brand name for it, but it is precisely to help pay for the cost of energy assessments. What you're talking about bringing that first consultant on board, they will help you pay for and many of the engineering consultants know how to make a proposal to you that they then go to NYSERDA to get that funding. Again, there's so much innovation going on in the market that what's particularly important is ensuring that you've got a consultant who's going to think creatively.

It's very easy to walk in and say, "Oh, well, it'll cost a lot of money if I take your boiler and turn it into an electric boiler," but it's much more important, frankly, to say, "Well, let's think about how we put in some insulation. Let's think about how we do," as you point out, better windows. Then you need a smaller boiler, and that's much cheaper. The other thing you pointed out is solar, and I'm glad you brought that up because I'm very pleased to say that just this week, the City Planning Commission formally adopted and the City Council adopted the Mayor's new carbon zoning or I'm sorry, the carbon-free zoning package as part of the Mayor's City of Yes zoning initiative.

Included in that package is a new set of rules that are now in effect, I believe, that makes it easier to install solar on a much larger portion of your roof as of right that changes the economics of solar because if your roof is X large and you can only cover half of it, which used to be the case in many situations with solar, it's an unattractive proposition. Now you can cover almost the entire roof without any trouble. That should make the economics of solar installation much more attractive.

You're totally right. There's still kinks in the system in terms of working with ConEd and things like that. I know they are very focused on improving their processes. This is a joint effort, and it is going to require some work. I'm grateful to you for putting in that work because I know that co-ops and condos, particularly the boards, it's not a paid job. You're doing this out of your own spare time.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, hang on and we will take your contact information for the commissioner's office if you want to leave it. I'm going to go to David in Manhattan next because he is one of those energy consultants we've been talking about or at least that's what he tells our screener. David, you're on WNYC with Commissioner Aggarwala. Hi.

David: Hi, Commissioner. Hi, Brian, and thank you for having me. I'm working with both non-profits, for-profits, and Landmark Hotel. One such challenge is we cannot get enough electricity right now to replace the natural gas [unintelligible 00:36:41] required for space heating and domestic hot water. We decided to pick the low-hanging fruit and go with the electrification of the top floor and all the common area, hallways, and then we decided to replace the boiler and replace 100,000 gas of use with 50,000 gas of use.

Now the accelerator group work, very good group, and then actually very good lending. However, their policies, they're hemming and hawing, they don't want to lend on the natural gas boiler, even though the owners and over three years, Con Edison admits they cannot get the power to replace these BTUs. While we're waiting to think things over, already in the last two years, every two years, we'd be operating the boiler with half the gas. It's just not pragmatic. We also don't have a synergy where there can be a streamlined process.

It costs about $7,000 to $9,000 to determine how much electricity you can get for your building from Con Edison. You have to do a formal request. We respect that. Con Edison has infrastructure. Everybody's goodwill intentions are there, but the system of it in itself, and we're on a learning curve, I can appreciate this, as we decarbonize the grid. We have to be pragmatic and elastic and say, "Okay. This landmark building here in Harold Square is doing the right thing," and at the end of the day, we'd be getting a letter A with carbon footprint reduction, but as far as financing the boiler is the problem because they don't like financing gas projects and that's just one issue. I think there should be a more streamlined process.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you. Thank you for taking us into the weeds and some of the complexity of this from somebody who's trying to advise buildings on how to do it and navigate all of this. Commissioner, quick response to David, and then I want to finish up with a couple other things.

Commissioner Aggarwala: Well, David, look, again, your example is a great example for why we can't be doctrinaire about this. We have to work as fast as we can but recognizing that not everything happens at the snap of your fingers. There is no question that some buildings will struggle to get the electricity they want. We actually, in the rules we have proposed, addressed that, that a building that is on the waiting list for the ConEd load letter would get relief because that is a good faith effort. If you are willing and able and ready to do the full electrification and you just can't get the power, and you will commit to doing it as soon as the power is delivered to your building, then you will get that good faith, the abeyance of the fines.

Again, I'm happy to talk with you offline. It is true, we are very hesitant to support any new natural gas infrastructure. The reason for that is even if it's smaller, and you're totally right, you'd save some carbon over the last few years or next few years by doing the plan that you've proposed. The reality is that that boiler is then probably locked in for 20 or 25 years. It's that long tail of emissions that we also need to worry about. Again, in this idea that we've promoted in the rules, we are willing to trade a little bit of carbon now to gain a lot more carbon reductions in the medium term. Happy to talk again with you offline about that.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Again, David, if you want to leave your contact information, feel free. Commissioner, I want to right now offer you an advance invitation to come back on maybe from time to time because I can't tell you how many, not just phone calls, but text are coming in with specific questions about how to do this conversion and ideas to suggest for how to decarbonize buildings in the city within Local Law 97 purview. People really are interested in this and really want to get into the details.

Maybe we'll do some future sessions if you're willing. Before you go, I know that you've been in sustainability positions in city government since the Bloomberg administration. You were on once during that administration. I remember when Bloomberg, as an political independent, tried to stay out of the 2012 presidential race endorsement game. After Hurricane Sandy, he endorsed Obama because he thought Obama was more serious about climate change than Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney, he's now the good guy in the news today for various reasons, but there's a little 2012 context, but that was 11 years ago. I'm curious since you've been at this for a while. If you can say the city has made actual progress, and this is not a Mayor Adams thing because he's new, has made actual progress in reducing emissions, or only promising things on paper, like with Local Law 97.

David: I think there's been a lot of progress. There's a long ways to go, but there's definitely been a lot of progress. New York City's carbon footprint is down. I actually have forgotten the most recent number, but it went down about 15% during the Bloomberg administration because of a bunch of changes that were made. New York City government has actually been well ahead of the private sector in decarbonizing its buildings, both through energy efficiency and through this effort we've made, which we'll kick in in a couple of years, to buy a lot of the power directly from Quebec and have it be 100% renewable. I think what we've seen across the city is also a significant change in awareness. Some of this is just the building up of awareness that leads to action.

The other thing, of course, that's happened, we had Hurricane Sandy, we had Hurricane Ida. I think New Yorkers know now, just as everybody around the world knows that climate change is real and we've also got to get ready for it. While the city is nowhere near as prepared as it ultimately needs to be for climate change, and particularly for things like violent rainstorms and coastal inundation, that might come from a hurricane, but we are much better prepared than we were when Hurricane Sandy hit. I'll mention there's been over just one example of that. In addition, people are aware of the Lower East Side and Esker and some of the work that's already been completed on the beach side of the Rockaways.

One of the things I'm most excited about that's been accomplished is NYCHA has invested more than $2 billion in making its buildings more resilient. You'll recall after Hurricane Sandy, we had NYCHA buildings that got flooded and they didn't have elevators for months because all of that electrical equipment in the basement got destroyed. A lot of that $2 billion has now been invested in raising electrical equipment, waterproofing it, putting stuff on the roof instead of in the basement, getting that solar power on so many NYCHA properties.

We've got much better resilience. Are we done? Of course not. We're going to be working towards resilience, frankly, for the rest of our lives. We're going to be playing catch-up because the climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond. I don't think it's just promises at all. New York City is definitely a greener city than it was when the first Plan NYC came out in 2007.

Brian Lehrer: That's certainly a big structure of talking about climate that we keep in mind and that I think a lot of people have to keep in mind, which is that on the one track, which is most of what we've been talking about in this conversation, there's the city's contribution to reducing climate emissions. On the other track, climate change is happening, climate change is going to increase no matter what we do today because a lot of it is already baked in. We have to adapt to what is and what's coming. That's the whole other half of the conversation that we also have here in our climate stories of the week. Last question. Do you have Climate Week plans, local ones or ones interacting with the UN? What are you going to be doing during climate week?

Commissioner Aggarwala: It's going to be a busy week for me. A busy week for many of my colleagues in New York City government. Mayor Adam's got a couple of Climate Week events. I think Climate Week for us is an opportunity, not so much to make news or anything. We're not going to make big announcements next week because there's so much else going on. It's a great way to take advantage of the fact that you've got leaders from government, from the private sector, from nonprofits all over the world coming to New York City.

It's an opportunity for me to tell New York City's story. For example, if we need financing, I want to be able to talk to bankers from around the world about the fact that New York City buildings need financing for Local Law 97 and see what they can bring to the city. It's also an opportunity for people like me and my colleagues to learn from other cities and other places about what's going on and what ideas we could bring here in New York.

Brian Lehrer: You're going to be at that march against fossil fuels on Sunday?

Commissioner Aggarwala: I might be. We'll see. My contribution isn't necessarily in shouting, it's in figuring things out.

Brian Lehrer: Rohit Aggarwala is New York City's chief climate officer and environment commissioner. Thank you so much for coming on and answering all these questions from me and the listeners. I look forward to next time.

Commissioner Aggarwala: Thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer in WNYC. Much more to come.

 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.