Hochul needs to be a CLCPA hero
The prediction that the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s goal of 70 percent renewable electricity by 2030 will more likely be achieved in 2033 is not alarming (“Report: N.Y. likely to miss deadline,” July 3). Major achievements often encounter major challenges.
What is alarming is Gov. Kathy Hochul’s seeming lack of commitment to this goal. We need the governor to be the hero in a new kind of quest. It will not be resolved in one climactic combat but in the persistent use of unglamorous weapons such as “load flexibility” and “longer amortization periods of the costlier offshore wind farms.” Its success will be invisible, in the form of fewer heat-related deaths, asthma attacks and environmental losses.
Oil and gas interests are quick to say it’s time to “press pause” on this essential work of decarbonization. They emphasize the difficulties of the goal and ignore much more dangerous scenarios resulting from the continued use of their products.
I suggest the governor adopt this mantra: Burning fossil fuels traps heat. There’s no getting around this fact, and there’s no avoiding the floods, fires, droughts and escalating force of winds that result from ignoring it. If she kept that mantra in mind, signing the Climate Change Superfund Act, getting the NY HEAT Act passed and implementing the mandated provisions of the 2019 CLCPA would be a no-brainer for her.
Inflation and increased demand make it ever more important that the governor be persistent, flexible and — yes — heroic in fulfilling her obligation to carry out the mandates of the CLCPA.
Barbara Burge
Amenia