The New York State Legislature introduced ambitious goals for addressing climate change with the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
Researchers at the ILR School's Climate Jobs Institute (CJI) say that despite shortfalls in progress after six years, the state can still meet those goals - while improving working conditions and equity.
"In a time when uncertain federal leadership is backing away from climate action, there's a clear call for New York to lead," said Linda Nguyen, climate jobs associate at CJI. "How can New York protect folks who are struggling and expand opportunities for people to thrive?"
Nguyen is first author of a report, "Key Interventions: How New York Can Still Achieve Its Climate, Jobs, and Equity Mandates," which was published Sept. 25 as part of Climate Week NYC.
"The report establishes a vision where New York, through managing its own institutions, can deliver on its climate, jobs and equity goals while navigating this new era of challenges. We believe New York can be a model for other states," said Nathan Lamm '22, senior research support specialist and a co-author of the report.
Other co-authors include Iris Packman '06, senior research and policy development associate; and undergraduates Tover Feist '26 and Eric Plankey '27. Energy modeling was done by Bethany Figueroa and Hassan Ragy, both policy research support specialists.
The updated recommendations follow a CJI report from earlier this year, "Update on New York's Renewable Energy Policies, Plans & Progress: A Climate Jobs Perspective," which analyzed New York's progress and found that while the state has made meaningful progress on some of its goals, such as distributed solar, it has fallen behind on others.
The new report's recommendations focus on how the state can address climate goals in a way that fills gaps left by changes in federal policies around renewable energy incentives, collective bargaining and workers' rights.
The research team anchored its work on three considerations: emissions reduction; job creation; and equity. The team conducted an extensive literature review, interviewed a variety of experts and modeled energy use with the Regional Energy Deployment System.
They found that New York - due in part to a federal pause on offshore wind projects in federal waters - has fallen behind on its solar and energy storage goals for 2030. Although the state did achieve its 2025 distributed solar goal, it is likely to require an extra three years to reach its 2030 target of producing 70% of its electricity from renewables.
And to achieve its 2035 target, the researchers said the state should increase its goals for solar and battery storage, to make up for the moratorium on offshore wind.
Regarding jobs and equity, the team found that New Yorkers are having difficulty paying for basic living expenses.
"A common theme we found was that folks across the board are struggling. In certain industries, like construction, generally workers are having to go on government assistance programs just to get food," Nguyen said.
The recommendations in the report point out how the state could achieve its climate goals while solving other problems faced by workers, such as the need for more well-paying union jobs and registered apprenticeship programs.
Nguyen describes the recommendations as a menu of short-term actions that policymakers, lobbyists and others can use to shape their efforts. "It's not enough to say, 'You should do this,'" she said. "We also say how to do it."
The report's wide-ranging recommendations call for the state to build more distributed, clean-energy resources. They also call for reforms on investor-owned utilities to increase electrification and energy affordability as well as for more investments to create career pathways toward union jobs for historically marginalized communities.
Nguyen highlighted the recommendation to revive urban development.
"It's thinking about sprawl repair and how we can build New York towns and city centers to be stronger," she said, noting the importance of a recommendation for the state to establish higher health and safety standards for workers, and stronger protections for union organizing in the private sector.
"This report," she said, "is what New York needs to do to make sure the clean energy transition doesn't leave behind working class communities."
Tonya Engst is a writer for the ILR School.
