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Wow. The Plan2030 New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg launched on Sunday to reduce the Big Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions
by 30 percent shows that there’s one Republican who understands how to put
environmental and economic progress together. Although the contemptibly lazy
mainstream media focused on congestion pricing as the reductio ad absurdum
headline news, even a cursory reading of Bloomberg’s plan shows that he’s
organized a comprehensive blueprint for the city’s future in transportation,
energy, housing, air and water quality, land use and municipal operations.
This is the work of an adult. Goals
are set. Tasks are assigned. Revenues are raised and dedicated. Monitoring and
enforcement are there. Most importantly, Bloomberg has created a vision to
stimulate economic growth while reducing global warming pollution, and
improving the quality of life for New Yorkers.
Among the more than 100 policies
Plan 2030 proposed, are ones that will, if seriously implemented over time,
decouple energy demand from economic growth— the key to sustainable reductions
in pollution. For example, the plan’s housing component drives public
transit-oriented growth, while meticulously promoting smaller points like green
roofs and green parking lots. Yes, the transportation component imposes the
London-model congestion pricing, a form of carbon tax, on those who drive cars
into the central business district of Manhattan during the workweek. But it also provides for new and improved
commuter rail access, expanded bus service, congestion management, repair and
maintenance of roads and mass transit, and even completion of a 1,800 mile
bicycling master plan. The land use component provides for the creation of
affordable housing, puts a public park within 10 minutes walk of every resident
and steps up cleanup and reuse of former industrial sites. The air quality
component sets the goal of making New
York’s air the cleanest of any big city in the nation
through such policies as reducing by 75 percent the sulfur content of heating
oil, converting the city’s vehicles fleet to biodiesel, working with private
truck fleets to reduce emissions and improving compliance with anti-idling
laws.
The energy component, which is too
complex and detailed to reduce to a few sentences, includes such major policies
as targeting the city’s largest energy consumers for efficiency improvements, ending
methane emissions from sewage plants, providing stimulus for alternative energy
retrofits and new construction, and reducing electricity demand with such tools as peak
load management through smart meters, distributed generation and grid upgrades.
You could quibble with some of the
details—for example, the plan doesn’t
impose a strong green building code to drive energy efficiency in
residential and commercial construction and the building stock. But Plan 2030
puts New York City
on the right road at the right time. Bloomberg’s visionary effort bolster’s my
contention that city mayors are the key protagonists in the global movement to save
the planet. At the heart of this role for mayors is one lucid factor: they
don’t have a military establishment to pervert economic, social and
environmental policies. If you don’t have to spend vast resources on war, you
can get a lot done in this world.
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