New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” a municipal version of the Democratic-introduced “Green New Deal” for his city.
“We’re actually making the Green New Deal come alive here in New York City,” he explained. “It’s three very basic ideas. One, the biggest source of emissions in New York City is buildings. We’re putting clear, strong mandates, the first of any major city on the earth to say to building owners, ‘You gotta clean up your act. You gotta retrofit. You gotta save energy.'”
De Blasio said if the building owners do not change their places to reduce emissions by 2030, they will be fined. For the biggest buildings in the city, they could face fines of up to $1 million or more.
“We are going to ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers which are incredibly inefficient,” he added. “If someone wants to build one of those things they can take a whole lot of steps to make it energy efficient, but we’re not going to allow what we’ve seen in the past.”
.@NYCMayor on the city passing a municipal “Green New Deal”: “We are going to ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers, which are incredibly inefficient.” pic.twitter.com/XtYNvMRCt0
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 22, 2019
The mayor said the city government is also planning to get all of its energy from renewable sources within the next five years.
I remember the devastation of Hurricane Sandy like it was yesterday. There weren’t many climate change deniers left in our city. Not after that.
This #EarthDay, we face a moment of crisis. There’s no plan coming from Washington to save our planet — we have to do it ourselves.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 22, 2019
