The drafters of a new “scoping plan” that will guide how New York State reduces carbon emissions over the next three decades heard last week from area environmental groups who urged them to act quickly, and from labor, utility companies and business groups who warned them against proceeding too fast.
While Ellen Banks of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter said it was “time to move on” from combustibles that contribute to an “increasingly dire” climate crisis, Joe Benedict of the Western New York Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors argued that some sweeping changes proposed under the scoping plan would cost residents thousands of dollars to transition their homes away from natural gas heating and cooking.
While Rahwa Ghirmatzion of PUSH Buffalo pleaded for governmental leaders to have the political will to abandon “false solutions” to addressing climate change and instead focus on advancing renewables such as solar, geothermal and wind energy, Grant Loomis of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership said removing natural gas from the state’s portfolio would create grid “reliability concerns.”
“The energy natural gas provides would have to be replaced by electricity, which would add considerable demand onto a power grid that is already strained,” Loomis said.
And so it went for more than three hours Wednesday afternoon inside the auditorium of the main branch of the Buffalo & Erie County Library, with speaker after speaker, nearly 100 in all, arguing for and against elements of the state Climate Action Council’s draft scoping plan. The 341-page document, released in December, was prompted by a 2019 law that pledged to reduce New York’s greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050.
Council members are gathering public input on the plan, which proposes dramatic changes in the way New Yorkers heat their homes, cook their meals and drive to their jobs. The Council will deliver a final plan to Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature by the end of the year.
The Buffalo hearing was the sixth since January. Council members were in Binghamton, Albany and Syracuse earlier this month and have two more public comment sessions in May in Brooklyn and in Tupper Lake. Written comments also will be accepted until June 10.
Utility company and labor organization representatives criticized the plan for being short on details about how such massive changes will be paid for.
Randy Rucinski of Utility Consultation Group said that decarbonization could be better achieved by keeping “all energy options on the table,” rather than moving the state toward electrification only, as the plan suggests.
But several environmental advocates said the state has no more time to waste in moving toward electrifying all homes, vehicles and commercial buildings and powering its electrical plants with renewable energy sources.
“We have new ways. The technology is here. It’s proven and it is highly cost effective,” said Banks, who urged the state to ban new gas transmission pipelines and gas infrastructure in new buildings. “The cost of change is billions less than the cost of business as usual.”
(1) comment
Sudden changes create boom town pricing. This needs to be phased in so everybody doesn't try to replace their furnaces all at once. An elegant way to phase it in is to simply grandfather old stuff. No new gas furnaces.
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