What Scott’s Done
- Led New York City toward the first and largest fossil-fuel divestment of any pension system in the nation, targeted billions of investments towards the green economy, and challenged the financiers of fossil fuels.
- Stood with communities across New York City to reject the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, such as the Williams Pipeline and North Brooklyn pipeline, and fought for an end to fracking in New York State and beyond.
- Pushed back against polluting peaker plants that spew toxins into the air of our most vulnerable communities and offered strategies to refashion our streetscape to scale back urban highways.
- Advocated for policies that will create good, green jobs by incentivizing the installation of green roofs, fast tracking solar projects, and greening the City’s capital program.
- Fought for federal resiliency funding and proposed strategies to create a more resilient city by protecting wetlands, safeguarding homes and businesses, and building out green and gray infrastructure that will protect against the next storm.
Scott’s Plans
Scott Stringer has spent his career fighting for a more sustainable future, working in the trenches with climate activists, creating detailed blueprints on how to achieve a cleaner, greener city, and harnessing every lever of his office to advance the causes of climate action on the local, national and international stages. The climate crisis is here, and New Yorkers need a mayor with solutions to put into action right now. Scott is proposing the most bold, comprehensive, and actionable climate plan New York City has ever seen — to truly deliver a Green New Deal to New Yorkers.
Meet our climate commitments faster and end the era of fossil fuel infrastructure
- Ban all new fossil fuel infrastructure, including new pipelines or the redevelopment of power plants.
- Create a public utility to power the city with 100% renewable energy by 2035.
- Permanently retire all existing pipelines, gas storage, and the remaining eighteen peaker plants operating across the city.
- Double the City’s Solar Tax abatement to jumpstart solar installations.
- Unlock the potential of energy storage by installing both large and small battery systems to allow New Yorkers to reliably access renewable energy.
Create tens of thousands of good-paying green jobs and grow the green economy
- Launch the nation’s largest green and blue bonds program to fund green and resilient capital investments.
- Transform Rikers Island into a hub of energy storage, renewable energy generation, and wastewater treatment.
- Fight for the federal and state funding to implement a Green New Deal.
- Create workforce development programs and apprenticeships to put more New Yorkers to work at tens of thousands of good-paying, 21st century green union jobs.
- Take on corporate financiers of climate destruction by challenging the big banks that finance fossil fuel projects using the power of the City’s pension funds.
Deliver environmental justice to ensure that all New Yorkers benefit from a healthier future
- Drastically improve air quality in areas with high rates of asthma, by tasking agencies to measure and improve indoor air quality, pinpoint pollution hotspots, and take cars off the road.
- Retire half of all New York City based peaker plants by 2028 and the rest by 2035.
- Scale back our urban highway network and repurpose road space into green space.
- Fight for the Green New Deal for public housing, outlined by Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, to entirely overhaul decrepit NYCHA buildings and take developments off of fossil fuels, generating 32,000 good-paying jobs along the way.
- Eliminate childhood lead exposure by targeting buildings already linked to cases of lead exposure.
Promote greener, energy-efficient buildings to tackle our biggest carbon source
- Decarbonize the City’s building stock and promote energy-efficient buildings by making retrofit mandates achievable and affordable.
- Ban natural gas and oil use in new construction or major renovations to allow for the scaling back of fossil fuels.
- Halt the use of polluting number four heating oil by 2025.
- Implement fast-track green permitting to accelerate green construction.
- Retrofit schools into hubs of sustainability by undertaking deep retrofits, electrifying buildings, topping roofs with solar or vegetation, and installing batteries.
- Develop a plan of district-scale clean energy projects that can take swaths of buildings off of fossil fuels all at once.
Create active streets and green spaces to improve air quality and physical health
- Make Open Streets permanent to provide more space for midblock playgrounds, greenery, and bike paths.
- Install fully protected bus lanes for all high-ridership bus lines.
- Extend Citi Bike across the five boroughs, massively expand bike lanes, and subsidize the purchase of e-bikes.
- Invest in parks and enhance urban forests by putting more resources into maintenance, supporting volunteers, planting trees, and building 100 new playgrounds over the next five years.
- Expand green infrastructure to avoid the development of expensive wastewater treatment facilities.
- Encourage the electrification of vehicles, especially school buses and convert the dirtiest 25% of the City’s fleet to clean, electric alternatives by 2025.
Enhance resiliency programs to protect New York against extreme heat, sea rise, and storms
- Protect all 520 miles of coastline from climate change and rising seas by implementing a five-borough resiliency plan that targets help to communities most at risk.
- New strategies to elevate homes and businesses, protect wetlands, and build back better.
- Address the danger heatwaves pose to vulnerable populations by distributing air conditioners, planting trees, and building green roofs.
- Create a long-term floodplain restoration program that moves willing homeowners out of harm’s way and helps create naturally resilient shorelines that can protect our neighborhoods.
- Increase access to low cost resiliency loans that can help elevate and safeguard homes and businesses.
