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New York City Climate and Community Stimulus Platform


Click here if you or your organization or group wants to sign on to this platform. List of organizations signed on below. 


Join us TODAY, April 21st at 3PM EST for a Digital Forum on a NYC Climate and Community stimulus.  


We are the Climate Works for All coalition, a coalition of labor, community, environmental justice and faith organizations all working together to fight climate change and ensure a just transition and fair economy for workers and low-income communities. 

We are in the midst of a global health and economic crisis. The economy is collapsing, and we have already seen widespread job loss and trauma for many people that will continue to grow.  We are now seeing what our coalition has known all along, that the hardest hit areas where most essential and low-wage workers reside are black and brown neighborhoods. For example, a recent preliminary study found that long-term exposure to high levels of fine particulate matter puts communities at a significantly higher risk of dying from coronavirus; communities with higher levels of pollution across the city are low-income, black and brown communities. The black population may be dying at a younger age than the white population. And, though only about 29% of the population, Latinx deaths account for 34% of the deaths in NYC, the largest share for any racial or ethnic group. Over 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last 4 weeks, rising to a higher rate than at any point since the Great Depression.  New York City has the 4th highest job loss in the nation. Unemployment disparities mirror the lack of access to healthcare across racial lines.  Restaurant, nail salon, retail and other sectors where workers, who are overwhelmingly women of color, are experiencing the highest job loss, and their jobs may not return at all after the crisis. But this is not a new story.  Our communities have faced economic disenfranchisement and disinvestment for decades, lacking access to affordable and healthy housing, quality healthcare, residing in the most polluted areas of the city, and working for poverty wages.

The coronavirus pandemic has taught us that our government is grossly unprepared to protect our most vulnerable communities. But we can learn from this crisis and take aggressive, bold action to prepare for the crisis that has existed before the global pandemic: climate change. There is no time to sit and wait. Climate solutions will create direct opportunities for coming out of an economic collapse, but only if there is large-scale, coordinated citywide action rooted in equity. If we get this right today, we can create a forward-looking plan that addresses how our communities, especially frontline communities, can recover from an unprecedented economic crisis and thrive in a post-COVID city by building a resilient New York.

In a time of great uncertainty, this much is clear: WE NEED GOOD JOBS. We need to move on a plan to create good jobs as soon as the economy can reopen safely, and that proactive plan can be adopted now. Our movement is coming together – labor unions, community organizations, environmental justice groups, and elected officials – to collectively call for immediate funds from the federal government to help us rebuild as a city. Austerity does not bring prosperity or justice or solutions to climate change. Another world is possible when we come out the other side.  

We stand together to call on our government for a commitment to the Climate and Community stimulus plan to strengthen our economy, put workers back to work in good, sustainable union jobs, prioritize the health, safety and wellbeing of environmental justice and low income communities, and move us towards our climate goals. Below is our platform that outlines major job creation strategies in the climate economy, and we emphasize that the following key principles be followed in the transition: 

  • Support businesses and cooperatives owned by women and People of Color.
  • Support the right to organize among non-organized workers in the climate economy.
  • Require all public infrastructure projects to be developed with Project Labor Agreements that mandate union jobs, prevailing wage, benefits, local hire mandates, and robust health and safety protections. 

Job Creation Strategies

Project Details

Funding Streams

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Systems

  • Continue work on retrofitting and installing solar, HVAC systems and electric heat pumps on public buildings currently unoccupied because of the crisis. Health and safety for workers on these projects must be a top priority.

  • Launch a municipal green bonds program that allows us to raise capital for investments in publicly-owned, local renewable energy generation and transmission, with an eye towards expanding solar, geothermal, and battery storage capacities.

  • Based on the city’s own assessment of improving the resiliency of our utility networks, work with regulators, utilities, and NYPA for additional investments in the grid to maintain and improve energy transmission systems, with an eye towards improving efficiencies and addressing resiliency issues

  • Maintain existing capital plan for NYC, prioritizing actions that maximize energy savings.

  • Obtain NYSERDA funds for improvements.

  • Obtain Federal Reserve support to achieve debt relief on existing municipal bonds.

  • Advocate for federal stimulus funds

Community Development via improvements to housing infrastructure

  • Earmark a percentage of the city’s budget for the next 10 years to fund energy efficiency and other improvements in affordable housing and NYCHA.

  • Continue processes for ensuring timely and effective implementation of Local Law 97.

  • Work with the state and NYSERDA to expand existing retrofit grants in affordable housing and create fund for low-income homeowner retrofits.

  • Plan capital strategy to target the worst energy performing NYCHA developments and stagger projects based on greatest need.

  • Advocate for federal stimulus funds.

 

Clean, public transportation expansions

  • Continue to invest in the construction of public charging stations that incentivize electric vehicle usage

  • Work with the state and MTA to increase maintenance and improvements to the subway system, as well as expand bus service and other public rideshare programs for communities which lack adequate access to public transportation.

  • Advocate for federal stimulus package

  • Advocate for federal relief of existing MTA debt

 

Local Manufacturing Hubs to Support NYC’s Clean Energy Economy

  • Maximize usage of our city’s industrial zones and waterfronts for manufacturing plants that produce and/or assemble goods and parts to be used for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

  • Electrify ports.

  • Direct NYC EDC to prioritize investments in this area.

  • Advocate for Federal Stimulus funds.

  • Explore loans and financing available via NY Green Bank.

 

Public Land Development for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation

  • Improve city parks by combining energy generation storage and transmission with community recreation centers.

  • Invest in climate protective projects similar to the Big U in the Lower East Side that prioritize environmental justice communities.

  • Utilize unused FEMA dollars already on hand for adaptation projects.

 

Public Waste Management

 

  • Preserve and expand recycling, composting, and waste reduction programs for waste streams managed by the Department of Sanitation to advance our Zero Waste goals and sustain good, green jobs in our city and region.

  • Implement the Commercial Waste Zones policy as soon as possible to promote financial stability, high recycling and waste reduction standards, and good living wage jobs in the commercial waste sector.

  • Federal, state and local economic development funds to improve facilities, trucks, and equipment

Labor and Workforce Training and Development

 

  • Assess feasibility and develop remote, online green job training programs where community members can receive preliminary skills in manufacturing, installation, and implementation so that they are prepared to quickly transition into green jobs once projects begin.

  • Work with community colleges and workforce development organizations to create and provide no or low cost training on new green technologies such as solar, ASHP, Universal 608 Lic, GSHP, Battery Storage, Insulation.

  • Obtain state and federal workforce development grants to develop programs with community colleges.

This Platform is endorsed by the Climate Works for All coalition and allies

ALIGN: The Alliance for a Greater New York

Brooklyn Movement Center

Chhaya

Community Voices Heard

Data for Progress

District Council 9 New York — IUPAT Painters & Allied Trades

Hazon

Jewish Climate Action Network NYC

Judson Memorial Church

Kinetic Communities

New York City Environmental Justice Alliance

New York Communities for Change

New York Lawyers for the Public Interest

New York Renews

New York State Nurses Association

Nos Quedamos

NY NJ Regional Joint Board, Workers United/SEIU.

People’s Climate Movement — NY

Pratt Center for Community Development

El Puente

Queens Climate Project

Restaurant Opportunities Center — NY

Sierra Club

Sunrise NYC

Treeage

UPROSE

WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Last updated May 13th