Our 2027 Campaigns

Problem: The Climate and Cost-of-Living Crises

New Yorkers are facing the twin threats of the climate and affordability crises. On the climate front, air pollution, worsening heat waves, annual wildfires, extreme storms, flash flooding, and power outages have made our environment more toxic and less safe. And at home, the high cost of groceries, rent and home insurance, gas prices, medical bills, childcare, and utilities are putting pressure on working people and making it difficult to care for their families. New Yorkers, particularly working-class people and communities of color, are paying the price. Working-class neighborhoods — where most fossil fuel power plants are sited most often — are also most vulnerable to extreme heat, air pollution, and high energy bills. 

Solution: Climate Justice

NY Renews aims to build movement power to protect our communities and achieve our vision of a world in which all New Yorkers can live a dignified, joyful life, free from the harms of the climate crisis. We know we can only solve the climate crisis and inequality together. But to do so, we must act to provide meaningful support that working families can feel immediately. Climate leadership and community protection in New York in 2027 still means not only cutting greenhouse gases but also creating healthy, thriving communities.

We seek to advance concrete goals to win the future we deserve through three campaigns:

Climate, Jobs, and Justice Agenda 2027

Bold Climate Investments in the State Budget

We call on Governor Hochul to allocate $5 billion total in her executive budget proposal for critical climate protections, including at least another $3 billion for the Sustainable Future Program and another $2 billion in non-capital funding. 

Strong Climate, Community, and Worker-Protection Legislation

We are also organizing to pass state climate legislation that will have immediate, concrete benefits for New Yorkers in 2027, like lower bills and cleaner, less polluted air, and offer key worker protections against extreme heat as the climate crisis accelerates:

  • The Temperature Extremes Mitigation (TEMP) Act establishes statewide workplace standards to protect workers from extreme heat, such as drinking water, paid preventative rest breaks, access to shade, appropriate protective equipment, and cooling in work vehicles. 

  • The Clean Deliveries Act directs the state to review pollution related to large e-commerce warehouses (like Amazon facilities), and require operators to minimize pollution by using electric vehicles, installing solar panels and batteries on-site, considering other kinds of transportation for deliveries, and strengthening protections for warehouses operating in frontline and working-class neighborhoods or near community spaces like schools.

  • The GREAT Act opens the door for Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), which use software to connect thousands of household devices like smart thermostats, home batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs), and coordinate them to act like a single power plant. By paying New Yorkers to reduce their energy use or discharge their batteries during peak hours, VPPs can help balance the state’s energy grid instantly, reducing NY’s reliance on polluting gas power plants. 

Climate and Community Protection 

Holding New York State Accountable to Its Climate Commitments to Lower Pollution and Invest in Black, Brown, and Low-Income Communities 

We’re calling on New York State agencies to take regulatory and administrative action that will make the Climate Law’s protections real on the ground:

  • Make corporate polluters pay to raise $5-15 billion each year for climate efforts while protecting environmental justice communities via a just cap-and-invest system.

  • Ensure every state agency takes climate action, as directed by the climate law, and that the NY State DEC issues regulations for economy-wide greenhouse gas emission reductions as fast as possible.

  • Invest in environmental justice communities, finally fulfilling the legal promise to invest at least 40% of state dollars into the communities worst impacted by pollution, and putting environmental justice communities at the center of state rulemaking.

New Yorkers United Against AI Data Centers

NY Renews is supporting local communities fighting against AI data centers across New York State, with a focus on proposals that impact Indigenous communities, such as the Tonawanda Seneca Nation in Genesee County and the Mohawk Nation in St. Lawrence County. Our coalition members are also helping communities statewide fight back against tech oligarchs and corporate destruction of their land, air, water, and climate, and advancing clean energy projects and programs for a just transition on the local level. This includes ensuring the State’s moratorium lasts as long as possible and leads to permanent protection for communities.

Across our campaigns, the NY Renews coalition aims to prioritize building a mass movement of New Yorkers united for climate justice and community protection.