New York's Biggest Challenge for Emission Reduction Goals: Green Building

David Giambusso and Brendan Cheney explore the status of OneNYC—the city of New York's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. OneNYC, championed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, includes one particularly challenging component: cutting emissions from buildings 80 percent by 2050.

The article discusses the work that's been accomplished toward realizing a path to that target:

Since introducing the 'One City: Built to Last' policy paper in September 2014, a working group of energy, real estate and environmental experts has been meeting to come up with a series of recommendations on how to reduce building emissions. Despite de Blasio’s threat to mandate energy retrofits, it does not appear that will happen any time soon.

According to Giambusso and Cheney's sources, the city "will have to make more dramatic changes to its existing building stock to make it more energy efficient" by 2025 if it wishes to reach its target. Included among the possibilities would be "Passive House" requirements for new construction. A much larger challenges, according to the case presented in the article, would be covering the cost of retrofitting existing buildings.

The article includes more discussion about the de Blasio Administration's progress on the other components of OneNYC.