With heat waves and extreme storms creating power outages from New York City to Central New Jersey, the tri-state region’s power grid is in the headlines. These events present what seems to be a conundrum. We need to generate more power while also curbing the pollution-driven climate change which is leading to these severe weather events.

In RPA’s Fourth Regional Plan, we call for the creation of a greener energy system with greater capacity. We will need to face the climate crisis head-on by dramatically reducing our greenhouse gas emissions while we continue to grow and demand more power. This means investing in a smarter grid, scaling up renewables and phasing out fossil fuels, electrifying our buildings and vehicles and becoming much more efficient in how we use electricity.

All of this will require significant investments with money we don’t have today. And we’re going to need to do it in an equitable way. RPA has proposed ideas for how to generate funding for some of the greatest challenges in our region - congestion pricing and tolling for our transportation systems; and a surcharge on insurance for climate adaptation. But there are already innovative tools at work in our region that are making notable progress in this space, namely Green Banks.

In this webinar, Bryan Garcia, President & CEO of the Connecticut Green Bank and Alfred Griffin, President of the New York Green Bank, share their experience accelerating clean energy deployment in their states, working with private sector investors to create low-cost, long-term sustainable financing. Together, we explore how the CT and NY Green Banks operate, what they have accomplished to date, and where they are headed in the future. Tune in!