Int. No. 2149

By Council Members Treyger, Kallos and Rosenthal

A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to establishing climate indicators

Be it enacted by the Council as follows:

Section 1. Chapter 8 of title 24 of the New York city administrative code of the city of New York is amended by adding a new section 24-807 to read as follows:

§ 24-807 Climate change indicators.  a. Definitions. For the purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:

Climate change indicators.  The term “climate change indicators” means evidences of ecological system level adverse impacts from climate change.  Climate change indicators may include heat-related morbidity and mortality, or other adverse heat-related impacts, climate hazard-related mortalities, such as drowning, days per year where air quality exceeds the United States environmental protection agency thresholds for criteria pollutants, heating and cooling degree days per year, brownouts and blackouts, weather related transit outages, weather related communication outages, land inundated by coastal flooding and total economic losses from climate related events annually.

Climate indicator monitoring project.  The term “climate indicator monitoring project” means a monitoring project based upon the climate change indicators and metrics, and climate resiliency indicators and metrics that evaluate physical climate change variables, risk exposure, vulnerability impact metrics, and adaptation measures and their effectiveness. 

Climate resiliency indicators.  The term “climate resiliency indicators” means evidence of an ecological system’s ability to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structures, functioning, capacity for self-organization and ability to adapt to stress and change; and be  designed to mitigate adverse climate change impacts. Climate resiliency indicators may include yearly changes in vegetation cover between February and June, the number of trees planted, the square footage of white and green roofs installed, surface temperature changes relative to white and green roof locations, households with residential air conditioning, the amount of square footage in the 100-year flood plain that is not flood-proofed, the number of residential units implementing core flood resiliency measures, the percentage of flood-affected areas containing adequate storm drainage, acres of restored coastal wetlands, miles of coastal defenses erected, population growth or decline in the 100-year floodplain, the percentage of transportation assets adapted for climate resiliency, and the annual percentage of total expenditures on resiliency activities.

b. There shall be a climate resiliency indicator and monitoring working group whose members shall integrate data and data sources that are collected on climate change indicators and climate resiliency indicators and provide such data to the mayor’s office of long term planning and sustainability for use in the monitoring projects required by subdivisions c, d and e of this section, in addition to compiling and integrating such data collected from such monitoring projects. The working group shall be composed of 15 members as follows: the director of long-term planning and sustainability, the mayor or the mayor’s designee, the speaker of the council or the speaker’s designee, six additional members appointed by the mayor, and six additional members appointed by the speaker of the council. The chair of the working group shall be the director of long-term planning and sustainability. Members shall include, but not be limited to, climate scientists, hydrologists, geologists, meteorologists or other technical experts from governmental and non-governmental organizations currently collecting weather, climate and other data.

c. The mayor’s office of long-term planning and sustainability, or such office as the mayor may designate, shall develop at least two climate change indicator monitoring projects that seek to gather and measure climate change indicator data, including but not be limited to the consideration of any indicators recommended for monitoring by the climate resiliency indicator and monitor working group.

d. One climate indicator monitoring project must gather data related to local social vulnerability components including but not limited to equity across heat vulnerability, social, race, ethnicity, language, morbidity or mortality, households without air conditioning, percentage of the population with disabilities, social vulnerability related to access to open space and social isolation in flood evacuation zones.

1. Number of heat advisories issued annually including heat related morbidity and excess mortality;

2. Changes in surface and air temperature during July and August;

3. Number of annual extreme precipitation events in excess of 95th percentile values;

4. Number of coastal flood advisories;

5. Trends in mean sea level rise;

6. Trends in peak storm surges;

7. Number of days per year of statistically significant sustained winds or gusts;

8. Number and duration of annual blackouts and brownouts; and

9. Total economic losses from climate related events.

e. One climate indicator monitoring project must create and gather data related to climate resiliency indicators and metrics. Climate resiliency indicators shall include but not be limited to:

1. Changes or increases in vegetation cover including the number of trees planted annually;

2. Changes or increases in the square footage of green and white roofs, houses with air conditioning;

 3. Groups engaged in resiliency projects;

4. Square footage of space not flood proofed or elevated in the 100-year flood plain;

5. Residential units in the 100-year flood plain implementing core flood resiliency measures;

6. Miles of dunes replenished and hard defenses;

7. Population growth or decline;

8. Transportation assets adapted; and

9. Annual financial expenditures on resiliency activities.

f. Where a climate indicator monitoring project has identified an urban climate change impact that is not monitored by existing monitoring projects, the office of long term planning and sustainability shall identify additional ways that climate change mitigation measures may be incorporated going forward and adopt an additional climate change or resiliency indicator to be included in such monitoring project.

g. No later than December 1, 2021, and biennially thereafter, the mayor’s office of long-term planning and sustainability, or such office as the mayor may designate, shall submit a report to the mayor and the speaker of the council, and post on the department’s website. Such report shall include the starting and supporting data of each climate indicator monitoring project, and recommendations for additional resiliency measures based upon resiliency indicators.

§ 2. This local law takes effect immediately.

SS

LS# 10383

10/30/2020 & 13440