After adopting its own Green New Deal, a college town sets a new target

MAY 4, 2024 5:00 AM ET
WSKG News
By Rebecca Redelmeier



Ithaca residents called for officials to take action on climate change at a rally on Earth Day 2024.
Aurora Berry/WSKG

Five years after setting some of the most ambitious climate targets in the nation, Ithaca, N.Y., is hoping to set a new standard. The city council unanimously voted this week to require that half the funding spent on its energy transition and on major infrastructure investments go toward those residents most at risk from climate change.

The vote makes Ithaca the first U.S. city to set a 'climate justice' spending benchmark higher than the target set by the Biden Administration.

It's the latest development in the college town's effort to model how a small city can tackle climate change. In 2019, Ithaca passed a Green New Deal resolution, becoming the first city in the country to commit to removing fossil fuels from all buildings within a decade. That effort has lagged behind its target, though it's now picking up steam.

"It's impossible to separate economic and social injustice from the impacts of climate change," said Ithaca mayor Robert Cantelmo in an interview just after the council voted unanimously to adopt the new framework, called Justice50. The legislation, he said, is an attempt to right the city's history of putting poorer communities in the path of more pollution and environmental disinvestment.

[...]