WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS AND OPPORTUNITIES?
Carbon neutrality is essential to limiting the impacts of climate change on water and food scarcity, living standards, and human health for generations to come. It also presents a massive opportunity to create more equitable and prosperous cities.
Benefits of a net-zero carbon economy include better health and life expectancy of residents, improved air quality, higher productivity and job creation, and more walkable and livable cities.
After all strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been exhausted, “residual emissions” may still remain. Carbon credits play an important role on the path to carbon neutrality. They address residual emissions and accelerate emissions reductions, while longerterm infrastructural, regulatory, and economic changes take place.
Source: Defining Carbon Neutrality for Cities & Managing Residual Emissions: Cities’ Perspective & Guidance
HOW CAN CITIES BECOME CARBON NEUTRAL?
Cities should work with local communities to develop and implement:
• Ambitious climate action plans that reduce emissions and achieve zero or near-zero emissions by a target year
• Strategies to compensate for any residual emissions such as the use of high quality carbon credits to bring net emissions to zero
One carbon credit represents one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent that is avoided or removed from the atmosphere through a project that is outside of a city’s emissions inventory boundary. Credits are issued for projects such as planting new forests or capturing and destroying methane emissions from farms. Projects must follow strict environmental integrity principles to ensure the credits they generate are valid.
NEW YORK CITY IS LEADING THE WAY
In 2017, New York City partnered with C40 to establish a working group of cities to develop the guidance document Defining Carbon Neutrality for Cities & Managing Residual Emissions, which establishes a shared definition of citywide carbon neutrality, and provides guidance and best practices for approaches that cities can take to achieve carbon neutrality.
ENSURE 100 PERCENT CLEAN ELECTRICITY RESOURCES
Achieving carbon neutrality requires a shift to renewable energy from many sources — from rooftop solar energy generation and utility-scale renewables to building- and grid-scale energy storage. Our work to green the grid is necessary to achieve deeper reductions in GHG emissions across our building, transportation, and waste sectors. A clean, resilient electricity grid will improve air quality for residents throughout New York City, support the electrification of building heating and hot water systems, and increase the resiliency of our electricity supply.
Today, the city’s electricity is generated by natural gas, as well as nuclear, hydropower, and wind and solar resources from upstate regions. While half of our electricity is generated within city
limits, electricity generated outside New York City reaches the city through a network of high-voltage transmission power lines, the majority of which come through the northern part of the city. Once it gets to New York City, electricity travels through a distribution grid composed of underground and above-ground equipment owned and operated by Con Edison to reach the end user.
New York State has committed to 100 percent clean electricity by 2040. This means the deployment of wind, both upstate and offshore, as well as solar power, must expand rapidly in the next 20 years, and will need to be complemented by a significant expansion in energy storage. At the same time, the transition to clean electricity must drive down the energy cost burden.
Almost half a million families living in New York City are currently over the state’s target for spending on energy bills. Attaining a clean electricity future, however, is constrained by the available transmission capacity directly connected into New York City.
