By Anne Reynolds

Four years ago, when ßÙÁ¨´«Ã½ held our first event for Climate Week NYC, we had a great breakfast and excellent discussion (Remember the topic? Access to clean energy for low-income New Yorkers), but the rest of the world didn’t pay all that much attention to Climate Week.

Not so 2021! Yes, we had a great  event: Offshore Wind, Ports, and Job Creation, co-hosted by our friends at NRDC, NYCP, and E2, and we also released a new to mark the week.  We were happy to have speakers from the City of Albany, UPROSE in Brooklyn, Equinor, and The Business Network for Offshore wind to really dig into the question of how port development to support the offshore wind industry can also urban communities.

But we weren’t nearly as busy as New York Governor Kathy Hochul! She made a series  of big announcements, starting on September 20, at the opening ceremony of , with two major clean energy related announcements. First, she increased New York’s goal for local (rooftop & community) solar to 10,000 MW by 2030 (in NY’s climate law it is 6,000 by 2025) and directed NYSERDA to develop a roadmap to achieve that.  Second, she announced that New York has selected two winners for the Clean Energy Standard Tier 4, the NYC Renewable Energy Program. According to this the winners were the Clean Path project which is a collaboration of NYPA, Invenergy, and EnergyRE (Related Companies) and the Champlain Hudson Power Express. These projects will have to go through a contract review process at the NYS PSC as well as permitting and interconnection processes. And yes, while we here at ßÙÁ¨´«Ã½ sincerely wish it were two projects supporting wind and solar power development inside New York State, we offer a congratulations to Invenergy and their Clean Path team. Here is our . 

Monday’s announcement was followed by several others. The Governor announced her support for from $3 billion to $4 billion.  She launched a across the state to educate and engage local communities in the clean energy transition. Just prior to the week she signed - a bill that ßÙÁ¨´«Ã½ supported and pushed for. Less directly on clean energy, but still climate related, the governor announced a  ; ; ; ; and finally (And this isn’t even a complete list!)

So, it was an active and interesting week for fans of climate policy watcher. Even joined in to mark Climate Week NYC this year! We appreciate Governor Hochul’s sense of urgency in enhancing New York’s climate policy and look forward to continuing to work in New York to make it a great place for the clean energy industry to do business.