09/2025: NYC Climate 101 Round Up

2019, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) passed, thanks to hundreds of groups across the state who came together under NY Renews. CLCPA legally binds New York to reach net zero by 2050 while centering a just transition and repair for communities most impacted by disinvestment.

It showed what’s possible when people act in solidarity.

But the scary truth is that NY Governor Kathy Hochul has never complied with CLCPA, and she’s going against it now. In February, she approved the expansion of the Iroquois pipeline, which will increase natural gas in New York and Connecticut and poison the air for families already hit hard. And after meeting with Trump, she’s allowing the Williams NESE pipeline to rise from the dead. This zombie project would stir up poisons like arsenic and mercury in waters near Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens while also poisoning air. Despite 11,000+ public comments, the state plows forward.

Similar stories unfold all over, from the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s fight against a massive industrial site on the border of their territory, to Queens’s resistance against the Mets stadium public land grab, to movements in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx to stop highway expansion. Together, they show how moneyed interests will try to erase wins, and how justice requires allyship across regions.

See below for some calls to action from across the state.