OP-ED, By Anshul Gupta
The most recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, prepared and reviewed by thousands of scientists and experts from 195 countries, spell a grim climate prognosis after decades of inaction by governments due in large part to the well-documented campaigns of denial, doubt, and delay by the fossil-fuel industry and its abettors. Meanwhile, climate deterioration marked by worsening fires, floods, droughts, and storms such as hurricane Ida that devastated Yonkers has tracked even worse than scientists’ predictions. Barring immediate concerted efforts, our world could be unrecognizable by the end of the century.
The end of the century is within the lifetime of a child born today.
Recognizing the shrinking window to make amends, governments worldwide have been spurred into action in recent years, and New York state – the world’s 11th largest economy – passed a landmark climate law, The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, in 2019. Soon afterward, the fossil-fuel industry and its allies launched a progressively intensifying campaign to malign the law by exploiting our innate fears of change and the unknown.
New Yorkers are being incessantly exposed to fear mongering that the state’s climate action plan threatens their energy reliability and affordability when the prime cause of energy supply disruptions and price spikes is our reliance on fossil fuels, which leaves us at the mercy of unpredictable international geopolitics.
Burning fossil-fuels in buildings for space and water heating is New York’s largest source of carbon pollution, and therefore, is a major target of disinformation. Forgoing gas connections in new construction in favor of highly efficient and reliable cold-climate heat pumps is a goal that cannot be met, some have opined. Never mind that a bulk of Westchester county has had a gas moratorium for over three years.
Not only did the sky not fall, the county experienced robust population and economic growth outpacing the rest of the state. As a bonus, we built some fabulous modern, healthy all-electric homes and buildings, some right here in Yonkers, and showed what is possible when we leave fossil fuels and closed mindedness behind.
Fears of grid capacity and power failures are often raised. But our electric grid is stressed in the summer while the heat pumps add to the winter electricity demand. Major utilities like LIPA and Con Edison support all-electric new construction to begin an orderly transition to a pollution-free buildings sector while our energy infrastructure evolves in tandem.
Even fossil-fueled heating doesn’t work during power failures without expensive generators. A look at poweroutage.us would reveal that beyond severe weather events, power outages are uncommon. However, almost every winter day, HVAC technicians and plumbers crisscross towns and villages all over the state, rushing to rescue hundreds if not thousands of customers with heat outages from broken boilers, furnaces, and water heaters.
There are good reasons for the business community and the business councils to break with the fossil fuel industry in support of New York’s climate plan, including its building decarbonization provisions. Due to generous tax credits from the federal Inflation Reduction Act, the more heat pumps we install, the fewer tax dollars will flow out of the state. On the other hand, burning fossil-fuels that New York doesn’t produce drains funds from the state.
With the US becoming the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas, domestic prices will be determined by the highest international bidder. The era of cheap natural gas is over, but New York’s gas utilities are still adding tens of thousands of new customers each year, creating unnecessary additional demand that increases pressure on supply prices. The more than 200 million dollars of annual cost of free hookups to these customers is also tacked onto everyone’s delivery charges. This is akin to a tax levied on ratepaying families and small businesses to fund free new gas hookups and distorts building economics in favor of an uneconomical fuel.
Continuing to build with fossil fuels not only makes cleaning our building stock harder in the future, but also exacerbates inequities and perpetuates harm. Expansion of the gas distribution network adds to everyone’s energy burden, but as a portion, takes a larger bite out of lower incomes.
The outdoor pollution from burning fossil fuels in buildings, responsible for thousands of deaths and billions in healthcare costs in New York, accumulates more readily in denser neighborhoods common in Yonkers and the Bronx. Smaller dwellings suffer higher concentrations of indoor pollution from leakage and combustion of gas linked to myriad health risks, including asthma among children and dementia among the elderly.
A climate-driven energy transition isn’t just good for our health but also for healthy job growth. According to the 2022 Clean Energy Industry Report, energy-efficiency and building electrification is the largest segment of New York’s clean energy jobs that grew 13% over five years to 165,000 compared to an 11% decline to 141,000 in conventional energy over the same period.
We don’t need to look beyond Westchester for evidence. After prototyping an efficient method for installing geothermal heat pumps, Dandelion Energy chose New York to start a business due to its market potential and supportive policies. Now headquartered in Mt. Kisco, the company has never stopped hiring since installing its first system in 2018 and has expanded into three neighboring states. Each year, its systems enable hundreds of new families to start heating and cooling their homes without paying astronomical utility bills or polluting their neighborhoods.
Powerful polluting and profiteering interests hell-bent on stalling our progress towards a healthier, sustainable energy future have been telling us to slow down for decades. Heeding them is not an option, because that’s exactly what has brought us to a point where a transition with speed and scale is our only option for leaving a livable climate for our children and grandchildren.
Anshul Gupta is a research scientist and a member of the Westchester chapter of the Climate Reality Project.
