The original law, one of the most ambitious in the U.S., required the Empire State to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent before 2030. (The state used its 1990 emissions as the baseline for comparison, per standards set by the United Nations.) Thanks to the law\u2019s uniquely strict accounting rules, the only way for the state to meet this target was to shift away from natural gas, which provides most of the state\u2019s electricity and almost all its heating fuel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But as the 2020s progressed, New York failed to wean itself off of gas. The reason for that depends on who you ask. Some argue that President Donald Trump\u2019s attacks on renewable energy<\/a> have slowed the state\u2019s progress, and others believe that state politicians have backed natural gas<\/a> when they could have invested in more clean energy. Either way, the state fell way behind schedule, and it stood no chance of meeting its 2030 goal without dramatic action that would have taxed or banned consumption of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Besides delaying the 2030 deadline by 10 years, the deal will also change the law\u2019s accounting to give less weight to natural gas, and it will slow the rollout of a cap-and-trade system, which would force polluters to bargain with each other to stay below a hard limit on total emissions. Hochul has defended these changes as an attempt to protect New Yorkers from rising costs, blaming Trump for the state\u2019s slow progress. She has warned that meeting the state law\u2019s ironclad emissions target \u2014 something a court ordered her to do<\/a> last year \u2014 would require huge pollution taxes that would end up inflating utility bills and gasoline prices, imposing thousands of dollars<\/a> on the average household. (The budget deal also includes language that would require the state to consider the impact of its climate regulations on household budgets.)<\/p>\n Legislators and climate activists who support the original climate law said Hochul pushed the changes without giving lawmakers a chance to discuss a path forward for climate action in the state.<\/p>\n \u201cThis really came out of nowhere, it was sprung on us, and it was difficult even to understand what was happening,\u201d said Marcella Mitaynes, a progressive state assembly member who represents a swath of waterfront neighborhoods in Brooklyn with many working-class residents.<\/p>\n Some experts who study decarbonization in New York said that the state\u2019s legally binding emissions target had become virtually impossible to hit given broader headwinds against a national or global transition away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was going to be really difficult to meet, because the economy wasn\u2019t cooperating,\u201d said Al McGartland, who served as the chief economist at the Environmental Protection Agency from 2005 to 2025. McGartland, an expert on carbon taxes, said that the change to the law is \u201cnot all bad because I think it does buy time to think this thing through carefully, and do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n The biggest change is delay. The budget deal sets a new target of reducing the state\u2019s emissions 60 percent by 2040, a number that the governor\u2019s office says is far more achievable than the 40 percent originally required by 2030. It also delays the launch of a \u201ccap-and-invest\u201d system, which was supposed to launch last year, until 2028. This system would assess new fees to polluters such as power plants and oil terminals and would funnel that revenue toward climate projects such as electric-vehicle chargers and heat pumps. Many climate experts believe such systems are the most efficient way to nudge an economy away from fossil fuels, but Hochul had grown concerned that the system would raise gas prices and utility bills at a time when many consumers are already struggling with fuel prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n The deal also makes two important changes to the way the state counts its emissions. Under the old system, New York had to account for the climate pollution associated with extracting the fossil fuels that it imports from other states. For instance, when a natural gas field in Pennsylvania leaked planet-warming methane before piping the gas to New York, the latter state had to count those leaks as its own pollution, in addition to that caused by burning the fuel for energy. Most other states don\u2019t do this. Once New York makes this change, it will reduce its apparent emissions by about 15 percent overnight \u2014 a result of the fact that the state imports most of its natural gas.<\/p>\n This dynamic was compounded by the fact that the state\u2019s old accounting system also gave extra weight to methane, which is the second most common greenhouse gas after carbon. Methane warms the Earth about 80 times faster than carbon dioxide, but it disappears from the atmosphere after around 20 years. Most countries evaluate their greenhouse gas emissions by considering the warming that will take place over 100 years, but New York only considered 20 years of warming, which makes methane look much worse compared to carbon.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 20-year outlook benefited certain polluting sectors and disadvantaged others. Under the new system, for instance, the warming impact attributed to the state\u2019s livestock industry and its landfills will fall by two-thirds. Unlike the accounting change for imported fuels, however, the change to a 100-year framework can be defended as ultimately more climate-conscious: The 100-year framework is the standard used by the United Nations climate secretariat that administers the Paris Agreement, and many climate scientists have criticized the state\u2019s 20-year framework<\/a> for distorting the true costs of warming. (The reason, in short: If you have a system that prioritizes methane over carbon, you may limit some warming in the short-term while baking in much more in the long run.)<\/p>\n But even with these changes, the state still won\u2019t be on track to meet its original 2030 goal. That\u2019s because it has made little progress on the biggest sources of carbon: cars, power plants, and residential buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Natural gas provides around 50 percent of the state\u2019s electricity, and it is the heating fuel for almost all the big apartment buildings in New York City and its suburbs. In order to fully ditch fossil fuels, the state will have to convert all those buildings to electrical systems like heat pumps. And then it will still have to replace all its natural gas-fired power plants with emissions-free sources like wind and solar.<\/p>\n These are both very difficult tasks. For one thing, electrifying a place like New York is expensive. The cost of replacing gas boilers with electric heaters in a century-old apartment building can run into the tens of millions of dollars, and landlords have been struggling to find that money without bankrupting their tenants. The New York City Council has passed its own law, Local Law 97<\/a>, that requires large buildings to make the switch by 2030 or face steep fines. But some building owners have said the fines might still be cheaper<\/a> than the cost of making the switch.<\/p>\n The law\u2019s 2030 target provides an powerful spur to decarbonization even if some buildings will struggle to meet the deadline, said John Foley, an executive vice president at First Service Project Management.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goals may be difficult to reach, but they\u2019re important to have,\u201d said Foley, whose firm handles construction projects for a large portfolio of multifamily buildings. He said that while new heat pump technology has made decarbonization easier for some buildings, meeting the Local Law 97 target will depend on the state\u2019s grid.<\/p>\n \u201cThe solution seems to be going towards electrification a lot more, and in order for electrification to be the answer, then you have to produce energy in a cleaner way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Finding clean sources of electricity to replace gas-fired power plants has also been an uphill battle. A new transmission line carrying clean power from hydropower dams in Canada down to New York City will come online this month, but it was delayed for years by litigation and environmental permitting. Two major offshore wind farms, Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind, will also come online this year, despite the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to block them. But they will only displace a fraction of the state\u2019s gas supply, and won\u2019t provide much power in the summer when demand is highest. (Coastal winds tend to be calmest in the summer when the oceans are hot and there are fewer storms.) Plus, developers have shown little interest in building more offshore wind farms due to Trump\u2019s opposition.<\/p>\n Some of the challenges, however, are of the state\u2019s own making. The state made its own electricity grid much more polluting when it closed the Indian Point nuclear power plant in 2011 due to environmental concerns. After the plant closed, the state had to import more gas to make up the loss.<\/p>\n The borough of Brooklyn, where residents who live near seasonal power plants complain of asthma and respiratory conditions, shows just how difficult this transition is. The state has been trying for almost a decade to close the particularly dirty \u201cpeaker\u201d gas plants that turn on to provide power during the hot summer months when electricity demand is highest and not enough power is available from other sources. But even once the new Hudson transmission line and Empire Wind come online, the state\u2019s independent grid operator says New York City could still need those peaker plants to avoid blackouts come 2031.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, the heart of the climate law was really to invest in our communities and reverse this legacy of pollution,\u201d said Mitaynes, the Brooklyn assembly member who represents residents who live near such peaker plants, like the Gowanus Generation Station. She said that the delayed cap-and-trade system would have funneled 35 percent of its revenue toward disadvantaged communities. That money could help address poor air quality and support the buildout of an offshore wind manufacturing facility on the waterfront. \u201cThis law really set us up as leaders, and [Hochul] has taken this opportunity to dismantle it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Hochul spokesperson Ken Lovett said the changes are \u201ccommonsense reforms\u201d and that the governor \u201cremains committed\u201d to climate action.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernor Hochul has made clear her top priority is keeping the lights on and costs down for all New Yorkers,\u201d he told Grist.<\/p>\n The state is still making investments in decarbonization: One state agency is investing heavily in large batteries that could store clean energy and thereby replace some natural gas capacity, and another will purchase $100 million in new renewable power this year. The state budget also increased a tax credit for New York City landlords that electrify their buildings. The budget deal also ups the proportion of future cap-and-trade revenues that will go to disadvantaged areas.<\/p>\n![\"Steam](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ravenswood-power-plant.jpg\")
Steam rises from the smokestacks of the Ravenswood Generating Station, the largest power plant in New York City. The state has struggled to build out enough clean power to replace its natural gas power plants.
\n Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein \/ Corbis via Getty Images<\/p>\n