Environmentalists are ‘f****** psyched’ about Zohran Mamdani. What can he actually do about climate change?
The mayor-elect will have a lot of influence over bike lanes and the city’s implementation of Local Law 97. But the state's constitution will create friction with Albany.
In the days after Zohran Mamdani decisively won the race for New York City mayor, a small group of environmental advocates quickly planned a meeting to discuss how to best approach the new administration.
They were excited — “fucking psyched,” Pete Sikora, an organizer with the group New York Communities for Change (NYCC), said — and hopeful that the new mayor could be a strong ally in making the city a global beacon for climate action.
But hours before the meeting and about 150 miles up the Hudson River, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration issued approvals for a controversial and bitterly fought-over underwater natural gas pipeline that will feed Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. The activists postponed their meeting, and instead organized a protest outside the governor’s office in Manhattan.
They rescheduled for the following week. But that meeting was also nearly derailed when Hochul told a court that day the state would delay implementation of a law requiring new construction to have all-electric heat and appliances.
“Every time we have a call scheduled, she announces something terrible,” Cecilia Ellis, an organizer with the group New York Public Interest Research Group, said during the meeting, which Landmark sat in on. “I think we should stop meeting.”
For the activists, Hochul’s moves were disappointing but not surprising. But the timing underscored a difficult dynamic that not only they, but also Mamdani, will face over the next four years: much of his agenda could be constrained by Albany’s considerable power over the city’s affairs.
The state’s leverage has been a long-standing point of friction between lawmakers in Albany and the city for decades, and has its roots in New York’s lengthy constitution. That document establishes that state law preempts many local laws, and a 1929 court decision in a case over a state law addressing tenement conditions in the city affirmed the state’s ability to pass laws directly impacting the city.
In the near-century since, and as the city’s government has grown more complex and sophisticated, the Big Apple’s leadership has had to battle the state over issues ranging from congestion pricing to local school control.
When it comes to things like energy infrastructure permitting, a labyrinth of state, local and federal laws or regulations can be triggered, with the state getting a leg up in many situations.
As Mamdani settles into Gracie Mansion, those dynamics will influence his ability to make good on not only his best-known promises to build substantial amounts of affordable housing, but also any efforts to have the city more fully address climate change.
“Much of the relationship between the state and the city is complex and moves in multiple directions when it comes to climate change,” Michael Burger, the executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University and a former environmental attorney for the city, told Landmark.
He continued: “There is a good deal that the city can accomplish on its own. But when it comes to regulating things like energy and emissions and transportation, there is often a complex overlap, or intersection, with state law.”
Mamdani didn’t place a particularly heavy emphasis on climate change during his mayoral run, though he did oppose the Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement gas pipeline that Hochul approved shortly after his win. As an assemblyman, he also opposed building a natural gas peaker plant in Queens and has pushed for the state to build publicly owned renewable energy.
More directly, he also promised to retrofit hundreds of public schools with modern HVAC systems, green spaces and rooftop solar — a goal that ties in with his message to make the city a more livable one. His platform also indirectly touches on sustainability through its focus on building dense housing stock near mass transit hubs.
And while improving public school efficiency may sound niche in a city as sprawling as New York, it isn’t. Buildings account for the vast majority of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions, and a recent study found that burning fuels for space and water heating accounts for around 40% of the city’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
Enter what could be an area where Mamdani will have a lot of relatively quiet leverage: Local Law 97. The law, passed in 2019, requires reduced emissions in most buildings with at least 25,000 square feet in order to help make the city carbon neutral by 2050
The measure requires increasingly strict compliance measures, and the mayor will have sway over upcoming deadlines — specifically, whether to give big building owners some amount of leeway to comply with the law or pass regulations that require stringent adherence.
Mamdani, for his part, has promised to strictly enforce the law — a position among many that has created friction with the city’s powerful real estate lobby. The outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, came under fire during his administration for rules that delayed compliance deadlines and gave large building owners the ability to buy renewable energy credits to offset their emissions, which critics said gave well-heeled companies the ability to buy their way out of their obligations.
“If the mayor wanted to change certain regulations to make things harder, make buildings do more on-site, the mayor can exert significant control over the rulemaking process,” Katrina Wyman, a professor at NYU School of Law, told Landmark, noting that the next set of Local Law 97 targets will take effect in 2030 and include much more difficult obligations for building owners than those that have already been imposed. “That’s very important.”
Legal experts also noted that Mamdani has more direct power over things like bike lane development, expanding fast and free bus access, enforcement of existing environmental laws that relate to everything from waste disposal to pollution remediation and even potential litigation. That could mean pushing for lawsuits against local polluters, or something broader — like joining or filing bigger picture litigation against fossil fuel companies.
For organizers on that call shortly after Mamdani’s election, the new mayor presents a clear opportunity for them to push for greater climate action. During the call, they discussed pushing for a city program that would install energy-efficient HVAC systems known as heat pumps so that smaller buildings with one to two families can decarbonize too.
The program, envisioned as a subsidy, would benefit not only the climate but also create jobs for the laborers needed to install the technology. An infusion of $10 million could help get 1,000 heat pumps installed across the city.
On Thursday, as Mamdani is sworn in as the 112th mayor of the city, climate organizers plan to be there “shivering on some platform seats” but feeling the warmth of optimism, Sikora, of the NYCC, told Landmark this week.
“We’ll be in the crowd both proud to have helped elect him, and ready to hold him to it,” Sikora added. “It’s going to take a lot of people power to get what this city needs from Albany and, even with an ally in City Hall, nothing’s a given.”