Appearing Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city’s own Green New Deal will “ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers,” warning property owners will face massive fines unless buildings are retrofitted to reduce emissions.
A partial transcript is as follows
JOE SCARBOROUGH: So talk about New York’s Green New Deal. Obviously, the one presented in Congress has actually caused a rift among Democrats. What are you doing in New York City? How does that provide a roadmap for Democrats and Independents and some progressive, forward-thinking Republicans nationwide?
BILL DE BLASIO: We are actually making the Green New Deal come alive here in New York City. So, we have our own Green New Deal, three very basic ideas. One, the biggest source of emissions in New York City is buildings. We are putting clear, strong mandates. The first of any major city on the Earth to say to building owners, “you got to clean up your act, you got to retrofit, you got to save energy.” If you don’t do it by 2030 there will be serious fines, as high as $1 million or more for the biggest buildings. And this mandate is going to guarantee that we reduce emissions. We’re going to ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers, which are incredibly inefficient. If someone wants to build one of those things they can take a whole lot of steps to make it energy efficient, but we’re not going to allow what we used to see in the past. And, the city of New York, the government, which uses about as much energy in a year as do the people and the businesses of the state of Vermont, we are going to get all of our energy from renewable sources in the next five years.