5 of the eight Democrats difficult Eric Adams within the NYC mayoral race tackled local weather change and Hizzoner’s immigration insurance policies throughout the “Climate Jobs Justice” candidates discussion board on Feb. 6 on the New York Society for Moral Tradition in Midtown Manhattan.
Some 36 local weather motion organizations, together with Sane Power Venture, Dawn NYC, New York Communities for Change, Fridays for Future NYC, and Rise and Resist, co-sponsored the occasion.
Moderators of the occasion have been Fridays for Future NYC member Helen Mancini and Santosh Nandabalan with Communities for Change. The candidates included former New York Metropolis Comptroller Scott Stringer, present New York Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, state Senator Jessica Ramos (D-Queens), state Senator Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn), and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens), who have been ready to reply questions regarding local weather, job, and immigration insurance policies to the gang of some hundred inside Adler Corridor.
Local weather speak, and pledge
The candidates have been requested if they’d decide to a variety of local weather and justice insurance policies, together with the enforcement of Native Regulation 95, which requires carbon caps on 50,000 buildings bigger than 25,000 sq. ft to cut back carbon emissions by 40 p.c by 2030 and 80 p.c by 2050; ending renewable power credit (RECs); opposing the Iroquois pipeline enlargement mission; changing 100 New York Metropolis faculties to all-electricity heating by 2030; and others.
All candidates agreed that appearing on the local weather emergency was one of the urgent points and unanimously pledged to assist the problems offered to them. Many mentioned they felt strongly about doing extra on a neighborhood degree to guard the atmosphere because the Trump administration works to tear down federal insurance policies.
Nonetheless, not all signed the pledge to divest the town pension funds from the fossil gas trade.
Metropolis Comptroller and candidate for New York Metropolis Mayor Brad Lander speaks at a mayoral candidates discussion board for local weather justice.Photograph by Gabriele Holtermann
Whereas Stringer, Ramos, Myrie, and Mamdani signed the total pledge, Lander disagreed with the primary half however signed off on the second a part of the pledge.
Lander defined his half pledge that singling out one asset supervisor by title would open the door for a lawsuit.
“We got sued for our fossil fuel divestment, and we won in court because we sat it on a solid legal foundation. But you can’t single out an asset manager amongst the 300 that manage for us,” Lander mentioned. “Even if they’re the biggest, you’ve got to [set] standards across the board. And that’s [why we’re] setting the strongest standards for asset managers of any U.S. public pension fund and teaming up with global asset managers through the Net Aero Asset Owners Alliance to make them real for BlackRock — and for everybody else.”
Former Metropolis Comptroller and candidate for New York Metropolis Mayor Scott Stringer speaks at a mayoral candidates discussion board for local weather justice.Photograph by Gabriele Holtermann
Stringer, who served as Metropolis Comptroller from 2014 to 2021 below the De Blasio administration, alternatively, mentioned the town ought to have a “zero tolerance policy for dirt polluters.” In 2018, Stringer and then-Mayor De Blasio introduced a plan to divest $5 billion of New York’s pension fund from fossil gas firms; the plan was accredited in 2021.
“It’s a $300 billion fund. It’s a fund that we can leverage. It’s playing chess, not checkers, and it’s not about being timid and being afraid,” Stringer mentioned.
Ramos, chair of the Committee on Labor, referred to her jobs and housing pilot program, which she handed within the State Senate. This system creates jobs within the building trade whereas addressing the housing disaster.
“[It’s] all about investing in the weatherization of our buildings,” Ramos mentioned, “and making sure that we are building new buildings and all of the new housing that is needed in a way that respects our planet. Investing in that alone should actually yield a very profitable margin for our pensions.”
State Senator and candidate for New York Metropolis Mayor Zellnor Myrie speaks at a mayoral candidates discussion board for local weather justice.Photograph by Gabriele Holtermann
Myrie mentioned he was unafraid to face as much as the fossil gas trade.
“The fossil fuel industry has been pushing people around for decades, knowing the harm that they’re causing to our planet, lying about that harm, and buying people to stay silent and not take action,” Myrie mentioned. ” So I shall be prepared to make use of our pension funds to do the fitting factor and to divest and to carry individuals accountable.”
Mamdani mentioned all fossil gas firms like BlackRock cared about was cash, not morals or rules.
“The only way [BlackRock] will understand we are serious about our commitments to taking on the climate crisis is that we are willing to take those billions of dollars, we let them manage and put them somewhere else, put them to work with money managers that are far more in line with the values,” he mentioned.
Migrants and ICE coverage
The candidates have been additionally requested about Mayor Adams’ memo to migrant shelter contractors, stating that if contractors felt threatened, they may enable brokers of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to enter migrant shelters and not using a judicial warrant.
Stringer criticized Adams for blaming migrants for New York Metropolis’s fiscal disaster.
“Eric Adams has been hurting migrants, people undocumented for his whole term as mayor, and nobody has come to the rescue,” Stringer mentioned. “We needed someone to stand up and do the numbers and say very clearly that our migrants, our undocumented workers, are the heart of our economy.”
State Senator and candidate for New York Metropolis Mayor Jessica Ramos speaks at a mayoral candidates discussion board for local weather justice.Photograph by Gabriele Holtermann
Ramos, the daughter of previously undocumented immigrants from Columbia, identified that migrants paid taxes, contributing to the U.S. financial system.
“The deportation of families would cripple our economy,” mentioned Ramos, who shared that ICE raids have been already occurring in her district. Ramos known as out Adams for failing to tell migrant dad and mom to file and notarize powers of lawyer to make sure their children have been cared for by somebody they trusted as an alternative of getting into the foster care system if their dad and mom have been deported.
“That is something that is already happening in my district, and that will likely continue to happen unless we make our voices heard,” Ramos mentioned.
Myrie shared Mayor Adams had issued an analogous memo directing metropolis hospitals to cooperate with federal immigration officers.
“What this memo does is it goes beyond our Constitution. I’m also a lawyer. I can read the Constitution. I can interpret the law. This is flat-out unconstitutional, and this mayor is bending the knee, refusing to stand up for vulnerable New Yorkers,” Myrie mentioned.
Assemblymember and candidate for New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a mayoral candidates discussion board for local weather justice.Photograph by Gabriele Holtermann
Whereas Adams was in Albany final Tuesday, Mamdani requested the mayor if he would uphold New York Metropolis’s sanctuary legal guidelines, which forestall ICE from getting into New York Metropolis public faculties, hospitals, and metropolis properties until they’ve a warrant signed by a decide.
“He refused to answer that question, punting it to the city’s law department,” Mamdani recalled. “This is a mayor who has shown us time and time again that he views the law as a suggestion, not as a requirement, not as something that has to be upheld.”
Throughout his tenure as council member, Lander labored alongside then-Metropolis Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to cross New York Metropolis’s sanctuary regulation.
“It is galling to see Eric Adams violate them,” Lander mentioned. “We’ve despatched them a requirement letter for each a kind of notices and letters in order that we are able to clarify all of the locations that they’ve been violating the regulation.
