The Age of Consequences
What do social scientists and national security experts foresee for 21st Century climate change impacts? Sober stuff [2.1MB]
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What do social scientists and national security experts foresee for 21st Century climate change impacts? Sober stuff [2.1MB]
The buildings of Songdo (a new city near Seoul, S. Korea) will be designed to meet LEED standards. Think big
Insurance, the business rooted in calculating risk, is feeling the climate change heat. Got a policy?
Consider the impact of the Thames Barrier as a case study in urban adaptation to storms, rising water levels, and floods. Just click
Leadership in climate research and economic security in England is threatened by inadequate funds for new supercomputers. Go figure
The US Geological Survey, the authoritative source on global oil resources, responds to criticisms that point to production bottlenecks and lower overall reserves. Recalculate
In consideration of where we’ve been recently and where we might be going, it seems right to start with Al Gore’s urgent call when accepting the Nobel Prize for his work on climate change. "We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency — a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here". Fitting for the occasion, Gore’s scope was global, but his certainty that we have no time to waste applies equally at the urban scale. It’s also true that what we do, we have to do well; there is scant time and few resources for half-measures or a willful indifference about learning from what we do.
Combating climate change is an undertaking without precedent. This undertaking will dislocate old patterns and habits while requiring innovations that may still be imperfectly understood. By shifting focus from the planetary to the urban, we can see what this dislocation and the learning curve look like from the ground up. A quick recap of New York City's climate and sustainability record for 2007 is a good place to start. This Torchlight singles out some pivotal promises made last year and seeks evidence of forward movement.
The year started well with the adoption of the rules for carrying out the City's high performance building legislation, Local Law 86. At least two City-funded facilities, an Office of Emergency Planning in Brooklyn and the Corona Maintenance Shop have been certified by the US Green Building Council (out of a City-wide total of 15 projects that received LEED certification by September 2007). That's good, but it's neither possible to say what else is in the Local Law 86 pipeline nor how well the completed projects are performing, especially in terms of their carbon footprints. Access to both project pipeline and performance data are of the essence not only to the assessment of Local Law 86 but to delivering on the City's biggest sustainability promise, Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030. With its ambitions for a vibrant metropolis of nine million people that will slash its carbon emissions 30% by the year 2030, every piece of the policy landscape has to be mapped, tracked and coordinated.
PlaNYC 2030, launched in April 2007, already has lead to admirable commitments by City government, the major universities that call New York home, the Housing Authority and the Board of Education to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. City government and the universities have pledged to fast track their efforts and shrink their carbon footprints — 30% by 2015, twice as fast as the rest of the City's building stock. Not to be outdone, Governor Spitzer announced the 15 x 15 policy to cut State carbon dioxide emissions 15% by the year 2015 and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) launched a sustainability initiative to shrink its "ecological footprint", although the latter has set no numerical target.
Reports from sources as diverse as the labor-environmental NYC Apollo Alliance and a McKinsey report written for the corporate Conference Board see market transforming economic development and job growth potential as inherent in this green growth. In a similar vein, a report done for Governor Spitzer sees "cleantech" as the state's best bet for a new engine of economic growth. Let's not forget the importance of giving PlaNYC 2030 real staying power. Mayors come and go, but the City Council has passed the "NYC Climate Protection Act" that establishes an office responsible for implementing PlaNYC 2030 and meeting its long-term goals, including the 30% CO2 cut. This makes good sense.
Big plans and good sense need sturdy standards for guidance and standardization as well as measurement and verification. The United States Green Building Council, creator of the LEED rating system, made great progress in 2007 when it required that all LEED-rated projects undertake commissioning of building energy project systems, meet certain energy performance standards and achieve two more rating points from a menu of energy performance optimization strategies.
These are among the most important sustainability promises made in 2007. Now, let's turn to how they've been kept. Plan 2030 offered a list of 127 initiatives but its forward momentum was immediately channeled into the fight over congestion pricing. Right now, the Mayor has nothing to show for it. What's worse, the congestion pricing dust up has all but obscured the remaining 126 goals in the media and public awareness. Other parts of the Plan for example, call for the creation by State law of two City energy authorities responsible for some heavy lifting on cutting the City's carbon emissions. The City may be rethinking this issue given the difficulty of getting legislation through Albany, and instead refocusing on what it can accomplish on its own.
Formulation and roll out of an energy strategy for New York City, as well as real enforcement of the State energy code should be at the top of 2008's to-do list. Looking ahead, tracking the progress of the 2030 Plan should be made easier and it should be fully web-accessible. Since PlaNYC 2030's launch in April 2007, the City's website has provided no updates on this crucial-work-in-progress. Stay tuned.
Another promise made that's becoming a work-in-progress is "greening" the City's Building Code. Plan 2030 promises to speed up revisions of this code from once a generation to once every three years. Although the 2007 code revisions could at best be called "lite-green", and another end-of-year revision makes New York the first city in the country with rules for the use of micro-turbines as a clean on-site power source, the 2010 round of revisions could go much further in nailing down how the City can cut its carbon emissions 30% by 2030. One smart step would be development of performance-based standards for construction and building systems. New York City is now home to 15 LEED certified buildings and has some 150 projects that have applied for LEED certification. As well, several outstanding high performance buildings developed outside the LEED system, such as Battery Park City's high-performance, high-rise apartments or the New York Times headquarters opened last year. And that is in addition to the eight buildings that received State green buildings tax benefits. It is important to recognize that there is substantial real world experience to learn from now. This real world experience provides a platform for delivering on a technically effective and cost-efficient green building code promise.
As many Torchlight columns have observed, good public policy and smart use of public dollars requires that evidence be required, collected, analyzed and published. On this score too, NYC has a long way to go. The City's Local Law 86 web pages offer no updated information and the PlaNYC 2030 web pages read as if were still April 2007. You can click and "learn how we plan to meet our goals". That's fine, but where can you find out what has happened to date and what the City has learned from this experience, however visionary and well intentioned? You won't find out on the City's website, so for now, you'll have to rely on your clippings files, your website bookmarks and your grapevines.
The need to green our infrastructure, with high priorities on mass transit, electric power generation and the combined sewer system was underlined by the subway floods of last summer. Rising groundwater levels will also imperil our infrastructure and cannot be ignored. There is no question that upgrading all these systems will require the mobilizing of technical ingenuity and capital investments in addition to improved routine maintenance. Prudence dictates that planning, design and investment in each of these infrastructure systems should also incorporate climate adaptation components. For instance, the City's subway system needs pumps and public address systems that can handle severe storms because it's likely that more severe wet weather will be part of the City's future. Among ideas worth looking into are innovative siting of shrubs and plantings as well as reconfiguration of subway entrances to capture storm water runoff.
The City and the State continue to be shortsighted on the land use and development front. For example, the City's zoning rules, which play a fundamental part in governing land use, should discourage new development in low-lying areas that are likely to be subject to storm damage and coastal flooding. Future uses of State-owned land are another horizon for smarter sustainability strategies. The power of zoning and land use planning are superb instruments to encourage high performance, low carbon impact construction.
A perfect example of how far we have come, but how far we still have to go is the Metropolitan Transit Authority's call for the development of the West Side's Hudson Yards. The MTA tips its hat to sustainability and energy efficiency without requiring that this development be carried out to the highest green building and energy efficiency standards. The Authority's "request for proposal" stipulated that developers must meet LEED Silver ratings for buildings and that the overall project has to be environmentally sustainable.
But the MTA should have aimed higher by stipulating that the winning developers go for a LEED Gold rating as well as earn an additional LEED point by commit to measurement and verification of the project they build by providing for the ongoing accountability of energy consumption over time. The MTA is a creature of the State and the City; both the Governor and Mayor name its Board members. These are elected officials with forward-thinking sustainability and climate policies. They claim that they are leading by example and transforming the environmental marketplace, but there is no excuse for playing second fiddle when it comes to delivering the goods.
Since this Torchlight opened with Al Gore's Nobel Prize speech, let's end with it too: "The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, 'One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.' The future is knocking at our door right now... We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource."
Sallan | News and Views | Torchlight | Nancy Anderson, Ph.D. | Comments
Knocking At Our Door
Sallan Readers weigh in
January 25, 2008
As someone keenly interested in the City's sustainability efforts, I was grateful for your Torchlight column "Knocking At Our Door." A year-end appraisal of progress toward key plaNYC 2030 goals was badly needed.
It prompts me to wonder why the City itself doesn't periodically share this kind of appraisal with its citizens. Its sustainability goals, ambitious to begin with, become only more urgent as climate change accelerates. The citywide collaborations required to achieve those goals require the full and free flow of information. As your column says, "... every piece of the policy landscape has to be mapped, tracked and coordinated." While doing this is no small task, managing information about policy implementation is not itself enough. Beyond information lie synthesis and insight. They're not to be found on the City's snazzy plaNYC 2030 web site. Exemplary as a roll-out of sustainability goals, that site devotes only one page to subsequent "News & Events," and that page is no more than an online filing cabinet for press releases. Most of them tell us that Mayor Bloomberg did this, Mayor Bloomberg did that. All of them put a shiny face on the news.
Those releases are useful, of course, but hey! Consider: Seems unlikely that a venture as ambitious and unprecedented as plaNYC can be going altogether smoothly. What aren't we being told?; Even motivated readers who try to synthesize all those press releases are left yearning to know, "But how's it going? What's proving difficult? Any surprises? What are you learning about what it will take to achieve sustainability?"
Presumably, the Bloomberg administration, so admirably results-oriented, has been rigorously assessing its performance on the sustainability front. It can use its plaNYC site to periodically share those assessments. And it can use that site to candidly tell New Yorkers the truth -- not only about successes but about inevitable struggles and failures, so we can all learn from them as this historic venture evolves, and so we fully understand the nature of the challenges entailed and can fully appreciate what the City does achieve.
Eventually, the web site could include an open forum for running dialogues with citizens on particularly difficult challenges. Would this actually prove productive? Maybe; maybe not. A demo could test the concept; let's find out.
The basic vision is this: a site that serves as a dynamic communication tool for years to come and treats the public as a partner; an authoritative, current, candid resource that is the must-visit site for everyone concerned with New York City's progress toward sustainability.
Will it be easy for the City to deliver what I'm asking for? No. But promoting a shared, reality-based understanding of what we're all engaged in for the long term sure seems worth a lot of effort, starting now.
Christine Van Lenten
The potential for solar power to solve our energy and climate problems is "off the charts". Here's how
France offers assistance to mid-east nations to develop nuclear power plants. Step right up
Let's look at the record of the EU-ETS. Advanced political-economy
The EU delays rules to bring airplane CO2 emissions into the ETS. Fly by
An EU battle between Germany and France and Italy is shaping up over a proposal to cut GHG car emissions. That's weighty
German Social Democrats (SPD) seek sanctions on carbon-intensive US exports as well as domestic political momentum. Read more
The Chinese government contemplates fuel pump and crude oil production taxes. Learn more
The world faces an 'unprecedented' dilemma of shrinking food supplies and escalating prices. Why?
By 2100, scientists say that sea levels could rise 64 inches, double the increase predicted by the UN Climate Panel. Wade in
China is beefing up its environmental clout, but will regulations change business-as-usual? WSJ [Subscribers only]
2008 will see the end of France's national coal-mining industry, now that its energy is generated by atoms, natural gas and imports. Look ahead
Soon, Spaniards will be able to make their homes energy efficient under a multi-billion euro grant and credit program. Learn more
Now there is a mandate, a plan and a timetable on a post-Kyoto agreement says German climate advisor. Read the interview
An eyewitness report on the heat applied to the US in Bali. Look here
Climate change can lead to social and political disruptions. 6 places to watch
Globally, increasing food costs linked to corn-based ethanol production. This is an avoidable crisis. Dig in
A US firm will build coal-fired power plants in India. Any implications for a post-Kyoto climate agreement? Clip and file
The UN finds that the decade ending in 2007 is the hottest in thousands of years. But the climate at Bali's post-Kyoto talks is chilly. NYT & UK Guardian
California's right to impose higher vehicle fuel efficiency standards than federal CAFEs is upheld by a federal court. This decision closely tracks a recent Vermont court decision. Read it here
Commuters who drive to work in NYC's proposed congestion pricing zone are, on average, relatively affluent suburbanites. Stop & go
Prime Minister Rudd won't pledge to carbon caps now, but he's not in the Bush league. Stay tuned
London's Chelsea Football Club (soccer to Americans) scores on the climate change field. Goal!
Catch up with the latest geophysical thinking on a changing Greenland. Enter here
The Bali post-Kyoto Protocol meetings go on, but with few signs of accord. No!
Critics of the Bloomberg congestion pricing plan offer no credible alternatives report finds. Stop by
The NYC Apollo Alliance finds that economic benefits and good green collar jobs can play a big part in making the Big Apple a sustainable city. Work on it [14.8MB]
The Berlin Reichstag, now ten years old, is a living laboratory for high performance building technologies. Enter here
A new report claims that the EU ETS is trading in carbon emissions credits for hydroelectric projects that didn't need the credits. Ouch!
A new report on Chinese eco-town development finds simpler solutions outperform glam-green. Look into it
The EU and the US are negotiating to eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers for goods and services that benefit the environment. Go WTO
The expanse of the Earth's tropical zone is growing-north and south. Whew!
The EU ETS market is starting to mature. Look into it
The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program is very successful, judging by the number of signs in New York City with large headlines indicating pursuit of this or that LEED certification, and the number of real estate advertisements that mention LEED certification achieved or in process.
LEED is a project of the U.S. Green Building Council based in Washington D.C.
The idea of using one’s buying power to shop for a better world is at least 20 years old (the first edition of Shopping for a Better World appeared in 1988). The focus initially was on buying at supermarkets and the “conscious consumer” has persuaded European supermarkets as a group to use their massive buying power to encourage suppliers to become certified against environmental and social standards.
Actual NYC & Metro LEED Certifications, 2004-2007
Based on the advertising, one would think there must be hundreds of LEED-certified buildings. And indeed, for the NYC area, 155 projects are listed on the Green Buildings Council registry as being in the process of seeking certification. In addition, more than 200 more buildings in NY State (no regional breakdown is available) are on a confidential track and are pursuing their certification in a less visible way.
However, the number of buildings that are actually certified to LEED standards is just 14, according to the latest information, through September 2007, from the NYC area chapter of the Green Building Council .
The first NYC area certification was in April 2004 at the Gold level, the only certification that year. In 2005, one more was added at the plain-vanilla certification level. In 2006, eight more were added, including the first Platinum certification. In 2007, four more were added through September.
The fact that only one project is certified to the Platinum level suggests that this level is very hard to achieve.
Platinum
C+F Office, New York 12/13/2006
Gold
The Solaire/20 River Terrace, New York 4/13/2004
Seven World Trade Center, New York 3/7/2006
The Helena, New York 6/9/2006
Tribeca Green, Battery Park City, New York 6/21/2006
Hearst Headquarters, New York 8/17/2006
Dagher Engineering Future Faci, New York 1/19/2007
New York Power Authority, White Plains 12/20/2006
Silver
NYC, Office of Emergency Management, Brooklyn 3/1/2007
Bronx Library Center, New York 7/21/2006
Gensler New York Office, New York 7/30/2007
Certified
NYMEX, New York 12/1/2006
Corona Maintenance Shop & Car, Queens 8/6/2007
Heimbold Visual Arts Center, Bronxville 5/4/2005
Eight Positive Lessons From LEED
A general problem with certification is that the standards of environmental and social activist NGOs tend to be very high. Activists go after the industry leaders (sensible enough for publicity purposes) while industry practice tends to lag behind. The LEED program offers valuable positive lessons on how to motivate both leaders and laggards. (In a subsequent article I will discuss some dangers with the LEED approach.)
1.The Yardstick, the LEED Point System, Is Easy to Understand. Each good deed, like an Eagle Scout badge, gets you a point. Reduce water usage in the landscaping by 50 percent and get one point. Reduce overall water use 20 percent, one point. Divert 50 percent of construction waste, one point. There are 69 possible points in six areas. The bar is pretty low at 26 points for plain-vanilla certification of a new building. The point requirement goes up for silver, gold and platinum (minimum of 52 points). Only six points are required of all building projects: fundamental building systems commissioning, minimum energy performance, CFC reduction in HVAC&R equipment, a room for storage and collection of recyclables, minimum indoor air quality performance and environmental tobacco smoke control.
2. The First-LEED Level Bar is Easy to Achieve. To persuade the average business that a certification is worth getting, it must appear attainable. That means a low entry bar. Apart from the six required points, all it takes to get a plain LEED certificate is 20 more points. Beyond that, builders can aspire to silver, gold and platinum certification.
3. The LEED System Is Flexible. The 20 points beyond the first six to qualify for first-level LEED certification may be chosen from six different areas. Sustainable Sites (14 points possible), Water Efficiency (5 points), Energy and Atmosphere (17 points), Materials and Resources (13 points), Indoor Environmental Quality (15 points), Innovation and Design Process (5 points). The last was added because of complaints that the point-mongering approach gave insufficient recognition to overall environmentally friendly design concepts.
4. LEED Offers Challenges for Industry Leaders. If green purchasing is a luxury good, then the Green Building Council has done a good job of promoting its top brand, the Platinum certification. In New York City, having been attacked for environmental failings in his previous office, Al Gore was eager to take space in a Durst building at One Bryant Park that seeks a LEED platinum rating. Battery Park City now has a building, “The Visionaire”, that was designed to qualify for the platinum LEED rating. The Goldman Sachs building in Jersey City uses wood that is 100 percent compliant with LEED requirements. Ground has been broken for the first green school. Stop & Shop and Giant Supermarkets are building LEED-rate green supermarkets. The US Green Building Council is so confident in the difficulty of achieving Platinum status that those who do will get all certification fees ($2,000-$12,000) refunded for any building that achieves LEED Platinum.
5. LEED Builds a Green Industry. The point system encourages builders to do certain things and buy certain products that help the green-building industry to grow. For example, a building gets a point for having an architect who is a LEED Accredited Professional, which encourages architects to get LEED training. Market researchers SBI (Specialists in Business Information) predict that the market for green building materials will grow from about $2.2 billion in 2006 to $4.7 billion in 2011, a growth rate of about 17 percent per year.
6. LEED Is Scalable and Expandable. The LEED approach started with office buildings and spread to other types of buildings - applying the green focus to the built environment, such as offices, schools, hospitals, homes and communities. The ratings are in place for New Construction, Existing Buildings, Commercial Interiors (applicable to tenant improvements), Core & Shell,Schools, Retail, Healthcare, and Homes and are used by architects, real estate professionals, facility managers, engineers, interior designers, landscape architects, construction managers, lenders, state and local governments across the country for public-owned and public-funded buildings and federal agencies like the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Energy, and State.
7. LEED Doesn’t Reinvent the Wheel. The easiest way to get points in the LEED program is to buy products that generate points, in particular certain building materials. The Green Building Council doesn’t try to set a multitude of standards for building materials but instead endorses standards of tohers and refers builders to products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC, described as “the most comprehensive” rating), Green Seal, Scientific Certification Systems (Green Cross), Green Guard, Carpet & Rug Institute, Building Green Inc., Energy Star Roof program and others. The FSC rating is the standard that most clearly complies with the principle of separation between accreditation and certification. The FSC sets the standards for the wood that is certified and then accredits other nonprofit organizations (like Rainforest Alliance) or businesses to certify that the wood meets the standards. This is best practice according to the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance (ISEAL).
8. Standard-Setting Is Broad-Based and Transparent. The standards for the rating systems are developed through a multi-stakeholder process led by volunteer LEED committees. Members are practitioners and experts from many parts of the building industry. Stakeholders can comment and review and members vote on new rating systems. The system has an open appeals process. Ratings are now being developed in Neighborhood Development and comments have been flying fast.
NEXT MONTH: Some questions about the LEED System.
John Tepper Marlin, Ph.D.-Principal of CityEconomist and is an Adjunct Professor of Business Ethics at NYU’s Stern School of Business
The US remains opposed to international climate controls, while the rest of he world meets in Bali. Hardly news
The US is rich in "negative cost opportunities" for cutting its GHG emissions. Fight inertia[4.1MB]
Global corporations at the Bali meetings call for a binding legal agreement on global warming that will unite science with business opportunities. Inaction's not an option