NY Renews Snapshot Newsletter

Welcome to the NY Renews Snapshot, a new monthly newsletter designed to give you an inside view of our coalition, priorities, and strategies to lead New York to a sustainable, equitable future. I hope you like what you see, and if you have any questions or thoughts on what would make a monthly newsletter better, don’t hesitate to reach out. Subscribe to this newsletter.

Sincerely,
Stephan Edel,
NY Renews Coalition Coordinator

Fighting for a Climate, Jobs, and Justice Recovery

Last week, we launched our campaign for a Climate, Jobs, and Justice Recovery. Over 500 New Yorkers joined us at a high-energy virtual rally that included coalition leaders in the labor, climate, and environmental justice movements, as well as videos from Don Cheadle, Jane Fonda, John Leguizamo, and Bill McKibben. We’re calling for the state to make polluters pay and use the money to create good, green jobs, invest in communities, largely communities of color, hit hardest by both Covid-19 and the climate crisis, and build the infrastructure we need to create a 100% renewable economy.

You can watch a recording of the rally here. This will be one of our major campaigns and eventually turn into our Climate and Community Investment Act fight, so stay tuned for more updates!

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Biden Climate Plan Includes NY Renews Frontline Community Investment Framework

In an exciting example of the impact state leadership can have on the national conversation, and a major victory for our grassroots coalition, the portion of Joe Biden’s environmental justice plan that calls for 40% of the benefits of climate and energy spending go to frontline communities, is modeled on New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Read More.

Building power in 2020

NY Renews has actively worked to support our members and to build connections between Climate Justice, Covid-19, and Black Lives Matter. We’ve expanded our tool box for building grassroots power even as the Covid-19 health crisis required new thinking about virtual and socially distant organizing, including:  

• Maintained and expanded our regrants program to support frontline coalition members through the demands of the Covid pandemic.
• Expanded online and digital campaigns and tools - including expanded email and peer-to-peer texting programs, and targeting policymakers using a wide array of tools - email, fax, phone calls, telephone relays, mailing letters, virtual rallies and town halls, and social media.
• Released toolkits for distributed organizing to build the capacity of our members and activists in the areas of: 1-on-1 organizing, expanding distributed campaigns across the state that leverage the CLCPA for immediate victories. Read More.

New Coalition Members

We’re growing! We now include 216 organizations, with new members joining the NY Renews family all the time. Recent additions include:

• Action Corps NYC
• Indivisible Harlem
• Zero Hour NYC

A full list and map of NY Renews’ members can always be found on our website.

Making It Real - CLCPA One Year On

The Climate Action Council - Passing the CLCPA was just the beginning. The comprehensive plan for implementing the law will be written by a 22-member (12 ex officio and 10 appointed) body called the Climate Action Council. Three of the 10 appointed members are very close NY Renews allies - Bob Howarth of Cornell University, Raya Salter, NY Renews’ Policy Organizer, and Peter Iwanowicz of Environmental Advocates NY (who sits on our Steering Committee).

The Climate Justice Working Group (CJWG) determines which communities are eligible for targeted investments, a critical justice provision of the CLCPA. Because of our advocacy, five of the nine appointed members of the CJWG are members of the NY Renews coalition.

Just yesterday, at their third meeting the Climate Action Council named members and allies of NY Renews to the Just Transition Working Group and all of the Advisory Panels that were created on topics such as: Transportation, Land-use and local government, Energy efficiency and housing, Power generation, and Agriculture and forestry.

In addition, we’ve also used our coalition’s policy expertise and the “advocate’s hammer” of the CLCPA to provide guidance to state agencies and weigh in on impactful regulatory proceedings.

We know that while the CLCPA is the People’s Law, regulatory proceedings can be inaccessible. That’s why we’ve launched a climate justice training series and a “People’s Climate Action Council” based on the popular assembly model.

Press clips

Some exciting press coverage from the past month:

• Grist: One year later, what has New York’s landmark climate law accomplished?
• Politico: New York's sweeping climate law inches along amid pandemic headwinds
• Inside Climate News: New York’s Use of Landmark Climate Law Could Resound in Other States
• WCNY Capitol Pressroom: Environmentalists question state compliance with new climate change goals

We’re hiring! NY Renews Seeks Part-Time Development Lead (staff or consultant)

We’re hiring a part-time Development Lead to lead our fundraising work! The full listing is here. Please pass this along to any qualified candidates. Application deadline is September 15th. People of color, women and non-binary people, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community are especially encouraged to apply.  

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NY Renews
50 Broadway
29th Floor
New York, NY 10004
www.nyrenews.org