At
its meeting on Wednesday, August 22, 2012, the Council passed a bill
co-sponsored by Council Member Oliver Koppell, a member of the
Environmental Protection Committee,
that institutionalizes and expands the work of the NYC Panel on Climate
Change and the NYC Climate Change Adaption Task Force.
The
Panel and the Task Force were created by the Mayor in 2008 to evaluate
the impact of climate change on New York City and to develop strategies
to protect the
city’s critical infrastructure from this impact.
The
new legislation expands the scope of these bodies to include, not only
consideration of the risks of climate change on the infrastructure, but
also on the city’s
communities, vulnerable populations, public health, natural systems,
buildings and economy.
“The
Council found global climate models predict that temperatures,
precipitation, sea levels and extreme weather events will increase
dramatically, even in the
next ten years, creating the necessity of preparing for, or ideally
preventing, the impact of these adverse climate changes on New York
City,”
Koppell said.
The
legislation requires that the Panel, consisting of climate change
scientists, recommend climate change projections for the city not less
than once every three
years. Within one year of the Panel’s recommended climate change
projections, the Task Force, comprised of representatives of the
appropriate city, state and federal agencies, as well as private
entities, will inventory the potential risks of climate change
to the city, develop adaption strategies, identify issues for further
study and issue a report to the Mayor and Council based on its findings.
“According
to the Mayor’s Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability, we are
already seeing more extreme weather - more days of heavy rainfall and
days
over 90 degrees, more frequent heat waves and more strong storms.
Consequently, the work of the Panel and Task Force in coming up with
plans to deal with the negative impact of this extreme weather is very
important and I am pleased that this legislation
requires future administrations to maintain their efforts,” Koppell
said/
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