In the last half-decade, we’ve witnessed a radical transformation of mainstream narratives around climate crisis mitigation and adaptation, economy-wide decarbonization initiatives, dramatic changes in low carbon technology readiness, and policy action at various levels of government. There is now broad agreement removing fossil fuels from buildings is required to achieve emissions reductions necessary to comply with the Paris Agreement. As such, replicable strategies to decarbonize large and complex commercial and residential buildings are now a major priority among policymakers, government agencies, and industry experts, particularly in New York. In 2019, the State of New York enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Preservation Act (CLCPA) putting the State’s economy on a path to carbon neutrality by mid-century. The same year, New York City enacted the Climate Mobilization Act including the building emissions and performance standard commonly referred to as NYC Local Law 97 (LL97) to mandate significant carbon emissions reductions from the buildings sector, which dominates total carbon emissions in the city.
This shift in the decarbonization Overton window has been met with optimism and joy but also with skepticism and fear. Optimistic stakeholders explain the benefits of electrification on greenhouse gas emissions, local air quality, opportunities for jobs creation, and better temperature and indoor air quality control. Skeptics call into question the “Electrify Everything” narrative as a misguided effort to undermine resiliency, saddle building owners with high capital costs, destabilize the electric grid, and disrupt an industry reeling from the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. They say the mild-climate California approach is not adaptable to the cold climate of the Northeast.
However, there is a third way and an otherwise thoughtful and rational approach that ultimately puts building owners on a path to successfully transitioning their assets to low or zero-carbon operations before self-determined timeframes or regulatory deadlines. Resource Efficient Electrification (REE) combined with an integrated design approach is focused on making incremental changes and enabling steps over time to achieve deep decarbonization without the need to rely on silver bullet solutions. In other words, don’t depend on your success on a single step. There are plenty of other traps and hurdles to Introduction to Cold Climate Tall Building Decarbonization 2 jump over to avoid stasis while climate compliance requirements grow. It turns out, the option of doing nothing is not really an option at all.
