A Report by Climate Works for All:
An Equitable Recovery for NYC:
Creating 100,000 Climate Jobs for Frontline Communities of Color
The COVID-19 crisis upended New York City. As of September 2020, more than 23,000 New York City residents died from complications associated with the novel coronavirus, and more than 648,000 New Yorkers are currently out of work. New York City is faring much worse economically than the rest of the country. As the City struggles to navigate through an economic recovery, its low-income communities are also battling a climate crisis. Hurricanes have destroyed New York’s coastal communities and rising heat indexes are threatening the lives of more vulnerable New Yorkers every year. Scientists tell us we have fewer than ten years to act to prevent the irreversible damage of climate change, and researchers are already projecting a second wave of positive COVID-19 cases. New York’s future is on the line.
We cannot return to a pre-COVID-19 New York. We must move towards a Just Recovery. We must implement solutions that address both the climate crisis and the economic crisis, and we must center New York City’s Black and brown environmental justice communities in these solutions.
The Climate Works for All coalition developed the Climate And Community Stimulus Platform as a visionary path forward for New York City’s recovery. The Platform builds off the momentum of the Climate Mobilization Act and the 2019 Climate Leadership and Climate Protection Act, both of which set the stage for the City to build regenerative economies that address renewable energy generation, food security, water, transportation, and sustainable manufacturing. The Climate And Community Stimulus Platform moves the needle even further by investing in infrastructure projects that reduce carbon emissions, including training our workforce for climate jobs, expanding clean transportation systems, retrofitting homes and buildings, and developing public land resiliency projects.
In this report we will demonstrate the feasibility of the Climate and Community Stimulus Platform, and make the case for implementing these projects in New York. The City must invest in the Climate and Community Stimulus Platform to ensure our communities will have a liveable New York for future generations.
Climate and Community Stimulus Platform Strategies
