The New York Times, December 9, 2009, Wednesday

The New York Times

December 9, 2009, Wednesday

The New York Times

Council Passes Curbs on Greenhouse Gases

The City Council on Wednesday approved a weakened version of an initiative to help reduce the city’s emissions of greenhouse gases, scrapping the most far-reaching requirement, which the real estate industry had called too costly.

The legislation requires owners of New York City’s largest buildings to pay for energy audits, undertake lighting upgrades and take other steps to reduce energy consumption. Under the final version, however, the owners are not required to follow through with renovations that the audits indicate would make the buildings more energy efficient.

Still, the measures, which are crucial to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s goal of shrinking New York’s carbon footprint by 30 percent by 2030, put the city at the forefront of efforts nationwide to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.

Jeffrey Harris, vice president for programs at the Alliance to Save Energy, a national group that lobbies on energy issues, called the legislation “a very significant step forward” in testing the combination of mandates and incentives that could work at a national level to encourage lower energy use in commercial and residential buildings.

“We need to find out more what works,” he said. “I hope we get lots of local jurisdictions to copy or adapt what New York City is doing. This is the time for bold experiments in building performance.”

Mr. Bloomberg said the legislative package represented the biggest step the city could take to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming, and called it “a crucial step in slowing climate change.”

The four bills approved by the Council are expected to reduce the city’s total carbon dioxide emissions by slightly less than 5 percent through the next two decades and eventually save $700 million a year in energy costs. They focus mostly on residential and commercial buildings larger than 50,000 square feet — about 22,000 buildings that account for almost half of all buildings-related carbon emissions from boilers, furnaces and the power plants that supply their energy.

The measures require large buildings to pay for energy audits every 10 years. Large buildings will also have to pay for “retro-commissioning,” an inspection of their heating, cooling and other energy systems to correct any waste, similar to a car tuneup.

Large commercial buildings will also be required to switch to more energy-efficient lighting, which usually accounts for about 20 percent of their energy use.

The new laws call for large commercial and residential buildings to participate in a program that will create a profile of their energy and water efficiency and make it public, which energy experts say is tantamount to disclosing the mileage per gallon for cars so consumers can compare performance.

Also, commercial building owners will have to install systems under which each tenant’s energy use is measured separately, to provide an incentive for tenants to conserve.

“We’re literally making our world-famous city skyline greener,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.

But there was considerably less enthusiasm among labor leaders and others.

Jeffrey Grabelsky, director of Cornell University’s construction industry program, called the dropping of mandatory retrofits “a disappointing retreat” and said cities must be more ambitious in using mandates and financial incentives to make a dent in energy use and generate jobs.