In recent years, New York City and the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut all committed to ambitious goals to avoid the very worst impacts of climate change, while strengthening our communities, and ensuring a sustainable, livable future for all. These goals rely on hitting carbon reduction targets in buildings, transportation and other sectors as well as scaling up renewable energy, including offshore wind and solar.

As the pandemic brought our economy to a standstill, triggered inflation and set in motion global supply chain disruptions, achieving these goals became more challenging, but were offset, in some ways, by commitments to federal support through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other policies and programs. Now the federal government is pulling back funding and support for climate initiatives, which makes state and municipal climate action even more necessary and urgent.

In this panel public officials tasked with achieving these goals will discuss what has already been achieved, what still needs to be done, how they plan to proceed and what the prospects for reducing climate emissions is in the near- to mid-term.