New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced plans to introduce a bill banning the construction of glass skyscrapers, forming part of efforts to reduce citywide greenhouse emissions by 30 percent. Unveiling the plans, he described all-glass façade skyscrapers as “incredibly inefficient” because of heat loss, according to NBC New York.
Mayor de Blasio identified buildings as the primary cause of greenhouse emissions in New York, with the bill also requiring existing glass buildings to be retrofitted to meet stricter new carbon emission standards. The city’s Green New Deal would also include plans to power all of the city’s operations with clean energy, such as Canadian hydropower, mandatory organics recycling, and the phasing out of single-use plastic and processed meat purchases.
Earlier this month, the city council passed the Climate Mobilization Act, a set of 10 bills responding to targets set out in the Paris Climate Agreement. Central to the act is a requirement that many of the city’s building slash their carbon emissions beginning in 2024, reducing overall by 40% by 2030. Green roofs on all new and smaller buildings will include plants, solar panels, mini wind turbines, or a combination of all three. According to Grist, the plan also includes the commissioning of feasibility studies to close the city’s 24 gas and oil plants in favor of renewable energy, and the halting of plans to bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New York.
The act’s “Dirty Buildings Bill” will require 50,000 of the city’s buildings to cut emissions by 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 through the installation of new windows, insulation, and other retrofitting procedures. The law would apply to buildings over 25,000 square feet, which account for half of all building emissions despite comprising 2% of total buildings in the city.
News via: NBC New York
New York City to Combat Rising Sea Levels by Extending the Manhattan Coastline
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced plans for a $10 billion coastal resilience project, designed to protect Lower Manhattan from flooding. In an editorial piece in New York Magazine, Mayor de Blasio outlined the ambitious plans to alter the waterfront of the Financial District, constructing a major infrastructural element up to 500 feet into the East River.
