The Climate Mobilization chapter in Hoboken, New Jersey was first to declare a climate emergency in 2017, and has been critical to the campaigns that have stopped two fracked gas power plants from being built in Northern New Jersey. In Kearney, NJ Transit is now exploring a 100% renewables microgrid after 15 municipalities and 13 state legislators followed the Hoboken City Council’s opposition to the fossil fuel project.
After declaring a climate emergency in 2018, Berkeley, California banned gas infrastructure in new buildings in 2019, citing their declaration. This was foundational to the building electrification movement that has moved into several other states. The Sierra Club shows 38 additional municipalities that are phasing out natural gas in buildings in California. Now, a coalition of nearly 70 companies, either headquartered or with operations in California, is urging the governor and the energy commission to enact all-electric codes for residential and commercial buildings in California starting in 2022.
New York City passed their “Climate Mobilization Act,” in April 2019, the United States’ most ambitious local climate action initiative to date, according to a new policy scorecard by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The Act imposes significant financial penalties of any buildings that fail to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions via energy efficiency upgrades, targeting the city’s largest driver of emissions. The ACEEE scorecard ranked climate action from 100 U.S. cities; 11 of the top twenty cities on the scorecard have adopted our framework and declared a climate emergency.