NYC wants greener skyscrapers

New York City is requiring high-rise buildings like the Empire State Building and Trump Tower to sharply reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Legislation passed on April 18 by the City Council puts caps on carbon emissions for buildings over 25,000 square feet, requiring a 40 percent reduction in their emissions by 2030. By 2050, the aim is to cut the buildings' emissions by 80 percent.

An inventory of greenhouse gas emissions published in 2017 found that buildings accounted for 67 percent of the city's emissions.

The mandate will apply to 50,000 buildings — from those with a few dozen units to Trump Tower, the president's Fifth Avenue skyscraper, which advocates have targeted as a major polluter.

The law goes into effect in 2024, and puts caps on how many tons of carbon a building may produce per square foot, with different limits for residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Buildings that violate the caps will face fines of $268 a year for every excess ton of carbon they put out, which could add up to millions of dollars.

"It will be the largest emissions reduction policy ever, in any city," said City Councilman Costa Constantinides, who spearheaded the legislation that is part of a package of bills known as the Climate Mobilization Act, which also requires new buildings to put in green roofs or rooftop solar panels.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he will sign the legislation.

Many buildings will have to replace heating or air conditioning systems with more efficient models or put in better insulation and windows. One alternative is electricity from solar and hydropower.

Real estate owners have said they support reducing emissions, but the legislation will make it too expensive, and the law has too many exceptions. The mayor's office said the cost to building owners to meet the caps would exceed $4 billion, and the owners would recoup those costs through lower operating expenses.

John Banks, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, told China Daily that the law "will have a negative impact on our ability to attract and retain a broad range of industries, including technology, media, finance and life sciences, that provide opportunity and continued economic growth that is so important for our city."

Buildings exempted from the law include rent-stabilized apartments, houses of worship and the city's public housing system.

Banks said the exceptions leave "mostly market-rate housing and commercial buildings to shoulder the entire burden of what is undeniably a shared societal problem".

Ruinan Zhang in New York contributed to this story.