Jonathan Lesser of the Manhattan Institute writes about the negative consequences of New York’s climate policies:
The state government has been hostile to hydrocarbon development and production and has long advocated green energy to address climate change. The state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act includes “zero-emissions” electricity mandates and requires “electrifying” end-use energy — vehicles, furnaces, water heaters, and even cookstoves. In 2020, the state enacted the Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act that overrules local community objections to siting large-scale wind and solar projects.
These efforts will fail. The 2019 Climate Act’s zero-emissions mandates are physically infeasible, and the resulting reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions would have no measurable impact on world climate. But the attempt to implement them will impose damaging hardships for consumers. Low-income New Yorkers, in particular, are already being hit hard by higher energy prices.
Read the whole thing here.