Activists and consumer advocates in New York want to see less industry influence on the state’s clean energy policy recommendations and a greater focus on environmental justice.
The New York State Climate Action Council’s Waste Advisory Panel “was tilted to industry and appeared to be less focused on slashing global warming emissions than on advancing industry interests,” Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, said Friday.
“While the Department of Environmental Conservation staff was helpful and discouraging the most audacious industry proposals, they decided to submit a long list of possible initiatives … rather than identify the top five priorities that would provide the biggest climate benefits,” Bautista said.
The Council on Friday heard feedback from the Climate Justice Working Group (CJWG) on policy recommendations from the Waste Advisory Panel, the Energy-Intensive and Trade-Exposed Industries Advisory Panel, and the Just Transition Working Group.
The 22-member Council is working to complete a scoping plan by year-end to help reach the environmental goals laid out in the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Ending the disposal of food scraps and yard waste at landfills and incinerators is probably the single most important action the state could take to cut emissions from the waste sector, Bautista said. (See Public Wants Tweaks in NY Food Waste Handling Rules.)
Prohibiting landfill disposal is the first step since landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the nation according to the EPA, and the associated heavy truck traffic also harms public health, he said.
“And sending organics to incinerators leads to additional air contaminants and is inconsistent with the state’s environmental justice goals,” Bautista said.
“I don’t think all industry is bad; I think we work hard to clean the environment and that waste-to-energy facilities provide a useful tool to reduce organic pollution,” said Gavin Donohue, CEO of the Independent Power Producers of New York. “I do appreciate what [Bautista] wants here, I just have some issues with some of the facts, that’s all.”
Bautista said that in terms of waste-to energy, he didn’t think incineration was considered a renewable energy resource, but Donohue said that it is covered under the CLCPA, though not under Public Service Commission regulations or the state’s Clean Energy Standard.
Demand-side Changes
The Council also received a brief review of the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from Amanda Stevens, senior project manager at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. (See Too Late to Stop Climate Change, UN Report Says.)
“The global occurrence of extreme weather events is unprecedented and such events will continue to increase in severity and frequency,” Stevens said. “In particular, emissions of greenhouse gases are not slowing down, and the global rate of emissions was higher in the past decade than at any other time.”
Though the Energy-Intensive and Trade-Exposed Industries Advisory Panel’s recommendations make little mention of specific technologies or energy sources, the CJWG wanted to see more attention given to methods that would allow the energy sector to continue to pollute, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and low-carbon fuels, said Abigail McHugh-Grifa, executive director of the Climate Solutions Accelerator of the Genesee-Finger Lakes Region.
The panel’s priorities may require reevaluation in terms of what should be promoted as industry solutions under the CLCPA, McHugh-Grifa said.
“We recommend strongly emphasizing demand-side changes such as process efficiency, materials recycling, materials substitution, waste reduction and improved product longevity,” McHugh-Grifa said. “Fossil fuel combustion for industrial heat should be greatly reduced, replacing it with electric heat whenever feasible.”
For industrial processes in which electricity is not viable, such as cement production, green hydrogen is a potential alternative, she said.
“However nearly all hydrogen commercially available today is produced from fossil fuels, and so-called blue hydrogen produced from fossil fuels but using CCS to reduce emissions could actually result in net increases in greenhouse gas emissions compared to burning gas or coal,” McHugh-Grifa said. “And I’ll just note that the Climate Action Council’s very own Bob Howarth has done some excellent research in this area. (See NY Study Highlights Rising Methane Emissions.)
Bob Howarth, Cornell University professor of ecology and environmental biology, pointed out that Sweden now has an operating plant that uses mostly renewable electricity to make steel.
“All of the heating is coming from electricity. They’re using a tiny bit of hydrogen just as a chemical reactant in it, but they’re using about 2% of the amount of hydrogen that they would have been using for the heating,” Howarth said. “So, the technologies are changing rapidly, and I would encourage us to pay attention to that changing world in which we live and begin to do everything we can to make sure we minimize the use of all hydrogen.”
This latest IPCC report placed a heavy emphasis on methane, which supports the CLCPA accounting approach. The IPCC report says that, to date, methane accounts for 0.5 degrees Celsius of all global warming, compared with 0.75-degree attributable to CO2, Howarth said.
“At a minimum, hydrogen proposals should be subject to review and possible denials under Section 7 of the CLCPA prohibiting state actions that impose disproportionate pollution burdens on environmental justice communities,” McHugh-Grifa said.
Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization, pointed to the “precautionary principle,” which says that when scientific evidence on potentially harmful actions by industry or government is uncertain, public health decisions must be made in favor of prevention.
“So, the goal and the idea that the scientists and the environmental justice movement had is that from soup to nuts, from beginning to end, the process has to be one that builds, that enhances, that honors health, particularly of communities that have a legacy of toxic exposure,” Yeampierre said.
By prioritizing the precautionary principle, racial justice and equity, the state will be able to come up with transformative recommendations, “not just for New York, but literally for the rest of the world,” Yeampierre said.
The CAC aims to issue a draft scoping plan by year-end and hold public meetings throughout 2022 before releasing a final clean energy plan in 2023.