The president of the New York League of Conservation Voters says action is needed on bike and bus lanes, waste collection, curbside composting and outsize emissions from the city’s buildings.
By Laila Gad, Inside Climate News
Just over a year after challenging an incoming New York mayor to become a global leader in the fight against climate change, the head of the New York League of Conservation Voters says Eric Adams has taken the first essential step: recruiting and promoting deeply experienced senior staff members.
In January, the mayor reached back to the administration of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg by recruiting Rohit T. Aggarwala as commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, or DEP, and chief climate officer. Under Bloomberg, Aggarwala created an Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, and he later founded a program of environmental grants at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Adams promoted Kizzy Charles-Guzman to executive director of a newly created Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, which consolidated four existing arms of city government. Charles-Guzman also served in the Bloomberg administration, advising the mayor on air pollution, leading the city’s first program to address rising temperatures and heat waves, and overseeing a range of health and adaptation initiatives.
And the mayor persuaded Vincent Sapienza to stay on as chief operations officer at the DEP, an agency with a $1.6 billion budget where he served as commissioner under Adams’ predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio.
While praising the appointments, Julie Tighe, the league of conservation voters president, said those leaders would need to make rapid progress on environmental issues ranging from bicycle lanes, bus lanes and automobile traffic to heat-trapping emissions from New York City’s buildings. Buildings are estimated to account for around 70 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions because so much of the energy for their lighting, heating and cooling comes from burning fossil fuels.
Tighe lauded the uniting of two critical issues in the new Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. Still, she reports that the office has been hindered by a struggle to fill staff vacancies.
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