Thanks for the opportunity to offer this testimony. My name is Rob Freudenberg and I am the Vice President for Energy & Environment at Regional Plan Association, an organization that for nearly a century has sought to advance and advocate for research-based solutions to long term problems.
And that is exactly what we have before us today: legislation to codify a research-based approach that addresses what were once considered long term climate impacts – deadly heat, heavy precipitation and sea level rise – but that are now occurring on a more frequent basis and that are increasingly accelerating.
As a highly developed, dense waterfront city with 520 miles of shoreline, New York City is centered directly in the crosshairs of the climate crisis. More days with waves of extreme heat (the most deadly climate impact) will take an even greater toll on residents’ health and well-being, while also boosting demand for power across an already strained grid. More frequent and intense bouts of precipitation will continue to overwhelm the City’s antiquated stormwater management system leading to more instances of flooded neighborhoods, city streets, subway stations and other facilities across all five boroughs. Meanwhile, the slow and steady, but accelerating, sea level rise threatens to permanently inundate neighborhoods and infrastructure, while deepening the reach and destruction of coastal storm flooding.
Put another way, New York City faces a challenging and dubious future: uncomfortable at best, wholly uncertain at worst.
Faced with these worsening impacts, the City must make critical decisions about how and where it invests taxpayer dollars if it is to continue to thrive while safeguarding its residents and infrastructure. Over the past five years, the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency in collaboration with City agencies developed and refined multiple versions of a set of Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines, the most recent version updated and released this past fall. These guidelines recognize that City capital projects can no longer be carried out as if the impacts of climate change are not here to stay. Instead, they incorporate the continually evolving science of the New York City Panel on Climate Change into standards for how to develop in ways that are resilient, now and into the future.
It is clear that the City must adapt to become more resilient and these guidelines offer one very important tool to do just that. Codifying them, identifying pilot projects that incorporate them, and developing metrics to gauge their success are not just good ideas, they are essential. We urge this Committee and the greater Council to approve this legislation as an important next step toward a more equitable and resilient City.
Echoing the comments made by fellow Rise to Resilience coalition members, these steps will make our communities safer and save taxpayer dollars in the long run. We also recognize that this one piece of legislation is just one of many steps that are needed, a number of which are also included in the proposed Rise to Resilience Act bill package.
Legislation like this demonstrates that resilience is moving from more of a guiding concept to a concrete reality. And none too soon. Please advance this common sense legislation and other legislation like it so that our City has a fighting chance to meet – head-on – the climate impacts we face today. Thank you.
