Recommendation
This policy memo response the People’s Climate March held on New York, September 21, 2014, by focusing on how to decrease New York’s level greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels . Despite the fact that 195 countries have become Parties to The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and 192 countries have signed the protocol , the climate crisis has not been solved but accelerated. By introduction a new energy-efficient standard in New York City to both public and private buildings could largely relieve this intensified situation and help sustain momentum from the People’s Climate March. This new proposal will transform New York City into an eco-friendly city with less greenhouse gas
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Big cities like New York with dense popularity should be extremely concerned about this phenomenon by introducing new feasible energy saving proposal to mollify this challenge.
One of the main solution is to decrease or maintain the same greenhouse gas (GHG) emission level for temperature control. Since nearly three-quarters of the GHG in New York City is emit from buildings , targeted project aim at renew existing low energy efficiency building and expand more new clean energy technology in both public and private housing. The new plan named “New City, Built to Last” should be activate to transform New York City’s Buildings for a Low-Carbon Future . With this affordable project, every citizen could enjoy the benefit of an advanced low-carbon city, improving the public health in long-term. Moreover, the new plan will generate large amount of addition job positions to better boost the economy.
To better analysis the effect of this new plan, a stakeholder map is illustrate below, by placing each stakeholder in their position.
The most affected group will be residents living in New York which could be grouped by low income, middle income and high income residents. The low income residents tend to have negative attitude since they pay a higher share of their rent for energy than wealthier residents, and often live in less-efficient buildings. An
Climate change is not a new concept. It has been mostly referred to as global warming in the past. As much as people would like to file this issue away as something to deal with at a later date, it simply cannot wait. This problem we face is costing us billions of dollars, forests and wildlife are being eliminated, and people are dying. Starting to sound like a big deal, right? Future generations will be affected the most. People who do not even exist will have to pay for what we, all people, have done to this earth. To begin to make changes, one must realize the severity of the issue. Bill Mckibben, author of “Recalculating the Climate Math,” conveys that “We’ve already raised the world’s temperature by one degree—enough to melt almost half the ice in the Arctic, kill off huge swaths of the world’s coral, and unleash lethal floods and drought. July and August tied for the hottest months ever recorded on our planet, and scientists think they were almost certainly the hottest in the history of human civilization” (Page 3 of 5). Global climate change is a serious problem because it increases natural disasters and is the cause of extreme weather.
In order to even attempt to explain the interactions of states in the global interstate system we typically have to look towards two words, international relations. International relations also try’s to explain the interactions of others whose actions manifests from one country and then is steered towards people of another country. While each state is exploited as ‘sovereign’, specified international groups and organizations are needed as state and non-state actors. These actors include the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and Amnesty International. International Relations involve the study of foreign policy, negotiation, war, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, international conflict, trade, and economics. Each of those foreign affairs essentially makes up the relation between countries. A very important issue going on in international relations today is global warming and climate change. Unfortunately this matter receives very little attention. The reason it is so serious, is it could eventually destroy our world, as we know it today. Global warming is already having severe effects on communities, health, and climate. Our sea levels are rising; heat waves are more frequent, wild fires are growing, were experiencing severe droughts, and also increased storms.
New York City has unique benefits in that there are tremendous amounts of people who live within close proximity to each other. This has resulted in higher uses of mass transit systems (such as: subways and buses). On average, New York’s total environmental footprint is 7.1 metrics tons per person annually. This is much lower than national average of 24.5 metric tons. The city contributes 1% of the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere for the United States each year. (“Inventory Greenhouse of New York City,” 2007) (Jarvey, 2006)
To improve upon these figures, Resolution 20140410-024 was supported in 2015 with Austin’s community climate plan “Net-Zero.” Spearheaded by the Community Climate Steering Committee, “Net-Zero” lays the framework for both the local government and community to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to near zero. Up to this point all city owned buildings and facilities are 100% reliant on renewable energies such as solar and wind energy. Pending projects will increase solar energy by 149 MW and wind energy by 400 MW. Figure shows Austin’s energy generation goals achieved by 2020.
Four months prior to the bill coming to the agenda of the New York City Council, Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in New York City. He presented new targets for greenhouse gas emissions for New York City and “urged other cities to follow suit.” Though he did not directly mention the proposal of the bill to the City Council, he announced at the Vatican that “the Big Apple was taking an interim step” by
The Annapolis city government has aimed to reduce emissions by 75% by the year 2025 as well as achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2050 (Savidge 2010). In order to achieve these goals, the city government has committed to reducing energy usage by 10% in public facilities by 2017 and 15% by 2020 (Savidge 2010). The city government also plans to achieve 25% of their energy from renewable sources as well as providing greener and more energy efficient upgrades to public facilities and city transportation (Savidge 2010). The Annapolis community has aimed to reduce emissions by 50% by the year 2025 as well as achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2050 (Savidge 2010). The community has been and will continue to actively encourage locals to purchase green and renewable energy, use alternative forms of transportation, increase recycling and reduce trash production, and to preform energy efficiency upgrades (Savidge 2010). Such efficiency upgrades could take place in the form of financing home energy improvements, energy efficient mortgages, energy smart schools, or zero interest loans for energy conservation and “green energy projects (Roseland 2012).” Mark Roseland published a paper on sustainability “solutions for citizens and their governments” that outlines the benefits that simple energy efficient upgrades can achieve (Roseland 2012). He states examples where residents can save over $1000 each year on oil, gas, and electric bills while reducing their emissions through local
Recently, the environment issues are becoming more and more serious. The increasing of greenhouse gas emission and pollutions lead to many environment problems related to climate change. The climate change impact our urban life in many aspects. As the biggest metropolitan area in US, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population about 19,831,858 by year 2012 (U.S. Department of Commerce, US Census Bureau, 2012) The population has been increased by 1.35% since 2010. The increase of population again increase the consuming of resources and increase the carbon dioxide of the statistical area which aggravate the global warming. At this moment, planners and government should take the impacts from climate change that will be critical concern to our area into consideration and applying a climate change management planning policies.
The City of Boynton Beach has adopted a combination mitigation and adaptation strategy. The city leaders recognized its influence of urban development on climate change and made a plan to help reduce their impact on future climate changes. “The plan is comprised of the three pillars that are necessary to achieving a sustainable future: environmental stewardship, economic growth, and social responsibility, all of which are interdependent and connected.” ("Go Green Boynton Beach!", 2015) The CAP is an implementation plan that will reduce greenhouse (GHG) emissions and energy consumption, while also constructing or renovating areas to
I hope this proposal will assist the reader in understanding our Earth’s critical condition and ways even an individual can attribute to the betterment of our environment.
Climate change can be defined as a significant change in the “average weather” of any given region sustained in the long-term and can be caused by Earth 's dynamic processes, external forces including variations in sunlight intensity, and also by human activities (USEPA, 2014).
One of the ways legislation has done this is by making San Francisco a less wasteful and greener city. In 2012 San Francisco was nominated the greenest city in the United States. San Francisco is a smart city which entails that “use information and communication technologies to be more intelligent and efficient in the use of resources, resulting in cost and energy savings, improved service
Green buildings could become one of the main factors to preserve our rapidly decaying environment. There is no easy way to define a green building, but a green building is essentially a structure that amplifies the positives and mitigates the negatives throughout the entire life cycle of the building (Kriss, 2014). There are many definitions for a green building, but all of them include the planning, designing, constructing, and operating of the building while taking into huge considerations of the energy use, water use, indoor air environment, materials used and the effect it has on the site the green building is being built on. The first green buildings dates back to as far as the 1970’s, when solar panels went from experiments to reality. Green buildings were not as popular as they are today due to their extremely high pricing. With technology rapidly growing, solar panels are becoming cheaper and cheaper, making the transition to creating green buildings more affordable. This is the primary reason for the increased growth of green buildings today. A modern company that is paving the way to the growth of green buildings named LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, focuses primarily on new and effective ideas for environmentally friendly buildings projects. With more than 60,000 commercial projects worldwide and 1.7 million square feet being certified every day, LEED is one of the leading groups for promoting green buildings. LEED has popularized the entire
The June 2007 , Change in the Air article thoroughly explains and discusses the new ideas and plans that the municipal government of Toronto is bound to enforce within the near future. Climate change is the single biggest issue that the planet currently faces. The City of Toronto is commited to face the challenge through environmental leadership and a sustainable future for all Torontonians. To adress this following challenge, Torontonians are encouraged to adopt more enviromentally friendly lifestyles. Some plans of many that the city is willing to enforce. Some of these programs incldue, “The Live Green Toronto program”, create a City-delivered “one-window” source of information on federal, provincial, municipal, private sector and community programs related to energy and other environmental issues, establish new standards to require and regulate green roofs in the City, and update the Green Development Standard accordingly, as well among other plans. If Toronto goes along with these respective plans it will help Toronto become a leader in local energy reproduction, which will help Toronto build a sustainable transport system. If Toronto goes along with this plan, we will see Toronto Tree canopy icrease drastically from 17%
The following is a summary of the IPCC Status Report on Climate Change. The following questions will be answered: is climate change occurring? About which aspects of climate change are we certain? Uncertain? What are the main factors determining climate change today? What is the likelihood that humans have caused these changes and what data supports this conclusion? And finally, what information is not yet available or are we unable to access at this time that may have bearing on the report and our understanding of climate change?
The increasing amount of green house gases (GHG) released in the atmosphere is causing significant changes in the environment leading to unpredictable weather patterns and warming of the climate system is putting a great pressure on city development and infrastructures. This essay outlines three problems caused by climate change in urban areas, and evaluates the effectiveness of some of the mitigation and adaptation strategies. This essay reasons that mitigation and adaptation strategies need to work in synergy in order to address the situation effectively.