Update — January 2010

 

Dear colleagues,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a restful holiday season and wish you all the best for the upcoming year. Urban Agenda had an incredibly successful year in 2009 and we look forward to working with all of you to make 2010 even more productive.

As we look forward to our work this year, we have some exciting news: Urban Agenda and NY Jobs with Justice have launched a new partnership, and Urban Agenda staff will relocate to the NY Jobs with Justice office this month. Beginning February 1st, our new address will be:

Urban Agenda
50 Broadway, Suite 1602
New York, NY 10004
Ph: (212) 631-0886
Fax: (212) 514-7471 (888) 370-3085 [Updated Feb. 2010]

NY Jobs with Justice has an incredible record of fighting for worker’s rights and ensuring equitable development and I am incredibly excited about our two organizations working together. Our first joint campaign will be implementing the Green Collar Jobs Roadmap, a comprehensive plan for New York City to grow its green economy in a way that is sustainable, prosperous and just.

Wishing you a great year ahead.

In Solidarity,

Joanne Derwin
Executive Director

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FEATURED PARTNER

Natural Resources Defense Council

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit environmental advocacy organization based in New York with offices also in Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Bejing, China. Founded in 1970, NRDC today has 1.4 million members and online activists nationwide and a staff of more than 350 lawyers, scientists, economists, and policy experts.

The NRDC, US Green Building Council, and the Congress for the New Urbanism has been working on the first set of national standards for environmentally conscious neighborhood development and planning standards that will be called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND). The first draft of the rating system was completed in 2005, and in the summer of 2009 pilot programs continued to be launched across the country.

Al Huang is a senior attorney at NRDC who works on environmental justice issues by providing legal, policy, and technical assistance to grassroots groups in low-income communities and communities of color fighting environmental hazards around the country. Al is also a member of the NYC Apollo Alliance.

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Updates

Cash for Caulkers:

Continuing his commitment to weatherization, President Obama proposed a new program to reimburse home-owners for energy efficiency measures. Popularly known as “cash for caulkers,” the program would offer incentives to home owners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and nearly 5 million homes could be retrofitted under the program, saving homeowners a total of $3.3 billion annually on energy bills. More information on the program can be found here.

Greener, Greater Buildings:

The New York City Council passed a revised package of bills, known as the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, which aims to make the existing building stock more energy efficient. The legislation will require lighting upgrades, benchmarking, auditing and retrocommissioning. The legislation is the first step in ensuring an efficient building stock and sets the groundwork for pushing for mandatory retrofits.

Kingsbridge Amory Campaign:

In a huge victory for the Bronx, the New York City Council voted down a development plan for the Kingsbridge Amory that would have given millions of dollars to a developer while creating only poverty-wage permanent jobs. Under the plan, Related Companies would have received $90 million in public financing. Yet, the company said it would create primarily part time, minimum wage jobs with no benefits. The City Council voted against the plan 45-1 with one abstention. The campaign for fair development of the armory has been led by the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), a broad coalition of community groups, churches, and unions, and may set a precedent for economic development in New York City.

Read op-ed published in the Daily News on 22 December by Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York.

MTA in Crisis, Again:

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) faces another budget shortfall of over $400 million and has approved a budget that slashes services on buses and trains, eliminates two entire subway lines, phases out free student transportation, and imposes several other cuts. Chronic underfunding of the Authority at the state and city levels, coupled with severely decreased tax revenue, contributed to the second consecutive budget crisis for the Authority. The MTA must hold a round of public hearings and have a second vote before the cuts would be implemented.

 

New Resources:

ACTE: Career Technical Education’s Role in Energy and Environmental Sustainability

Next 10: Many Shades of Green: Diversity and Distribution of California’s Green Jobs

Families United for Racial and Economic Equality and Urban Justice Center: Food Fight: Expanding Access to Affordable and Healthy Food in Downtown BrooklynCities

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SPOTLIGHT

Copenhagen Update: Green Jobs

The United Nations Climate Change Conference that took place December 7-18th was the continuation of negotiations and discussions around climate change on a global scale that began over 15 years ago. In 1992, leaders from different countries met at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to develop a plan to address global warming, climate change, and the dangerous impact of carbon emissions that have been produced from human activities. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC) was the international environmental treaty that was adopted at the Earth Summit with the objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to a level that would prevent further climatic and environmental damage to the earth due to human activities and consumption. The parties to the convention have met annually since 1995 to evaluate progress on addressing climate change. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was established, creating legally binding obligations on developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference this year, the chief goals were to assess not only how countries have met their requirements under the Kyoto Protocol, but also to present new obligations and strengthen commitments for real change.

Big Issues

Leading up to the Copenhagen conference there were talks of proposals related to targeted reductions in carbon emissions and money being invested in renewable and green technologies for developing countries. Although this was discussed at the Copenhagen conference, the final product, called the Copenhagen Accord, was unfortunately not a legally binding document requiring concrete accountability by member states but something more like a broad rough draft of an agreement to move towards a more environmentally sustainable society.

For over a year, Urban Agenda has convened the Green Collar Jobs Roundtable, a coalition of over 170 organizations working towards a long-term workforce development plan in New York City. Urban Agenda is seeking a motivated, dedicated, and talented individual to work with the Roundtable roadmap roll out and other advocacy efforts going forward.

What does this mean for Green Jobs?

The second week of the conference, the Obama administration announced plans to extend tax breaks for clean energy investment by 5 billion dollars. The plan will allow for green technologies and renewable energy manufacturing, such as solar panels and wind turbines, to receive a 30 per cent tax credit. If approved by Congress, this would be a huge step towards opening up green industry and markets and providing more opportunities for green job creation.

Key aspects of the Accord include:

• Cap on global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius.
  
• Developed nations must "commit to implement individually or jointly the quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020, to be submitted to the UN secretariat by January 31, 2010.”
  
• Significant steps forward related to the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) proposal, where developing countries would receive compensation for preserving their rainforests.
  
• The Copenhagen Green Climate Fund which is a financial mechanism and commitment of 30 billion dollars between 2010-2012 primarily in developing countries (to increase to 100 billion by 2020) in order to provide ‘adequate, predictable, and sustainable’ financial resources, technology, and capacity-building to support the implementation.