Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Paris Climate Agreement Luncheon

April 22, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you so much, Lisa.

Your Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen – I want to welcome all of you to New York City. I want you to know that today you’re bringing hope and energy and excitement to New York City, a place that’s pretty exciting to begin with. But because of all of you, there’s a sense today of something that we’re all doing together across the globe that for years we thought was impossible, but before our very eyes, it’s now happening. And I want to thank everyone in this room who shares a piece of that victory.

On behalf of 8.5 million New Yorkers, I want to say thank you with not just warmth and affection but with urgency because we didn’t have another moment to wait before this progress. And thanks to you, this city and cities around the world now can see a pathway forward. We understand it’s our responsibility to take much of the burden on ourselves because so much of what we’re seeing around the world is – change happens at the local level.  But what you’ve done today has opened up a world of possibilities.

Now, I have to say, New York City’s gotten a little spoiled because we’ve had the pleasure of having the secretary general in our midst for all these years. But I think I can say on behalf of people all over the world, we wouldn’t be here today if there wasn’t a man in the top governmental position on the Earth, who made fighting climate change such a profound priority – and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, we are profoundly thankful to you.

[Applause]

There are many heroes in this room. We wouldn’t be here today without the hard work of President Hollande and Minister Fabius – we wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for people who led the way in our thinking and our ability to conceptualize the problem. And I had the honor of speaking with America’s own Al Gore, earlier, who is one of the people who brought this issue to global attention, and Vice President Gore, we thank you.

[Applause]

And to all of you – what a fantastic moment in history when, in addition to all of the leadership here and of nations to the world, we hear a voice emanating from Rome on a regular basis reminding us of our responsibilities – His Holiness Pope Francis has elevated the question of climate change so powerfully and so elegantly and so meaningfully.

So, all of these pieces have added up to help us get to today, and now we must go farther. And I was particularly moved by the simple notion that Prime Minister Renzi mentioned in his remarks – what we’re really doing is telling the next generation there is a way to act. And we’re investing them in that action because we proved that the previous generation could give them that starting point, that platform.

Well, here in New York City, we understand that the status quo is not acceptable. We understood that we had to take on the 80 by 50 goal. We were prodded by the secretary general regularly until we did. And we also got to witness the voices of the people with the extraordinary climate change march two years ago. And we saw it all around the world – the people calling leaders to count, and holding us to a higher standard. We, in New York City, accept that mission.

Today, we’re announcing that we’ve begun a series of mandates on the private sector of this city. Not only will we retrofit all the public buildings of New York City, we will now require retrofitting in our private buildings as well because we’re going to address climate change. Our private sector, obviously, must be a partner, but government can help the private sector to a higher level of goal and achievement.

And we’ve made clear that going forward, all new buildings in this city – when we pass new laws shortly – all new buildings will have to be between 60 and 80 percent more efficient than the buildings we have today to protect the future of this city and this Earth.

[Applause]

And everything we do matters. So, we used to follow the old way of buying conventional vehicles for our City government. Well, now we’ve made a simple commitment. From this point on, every new car we buy will be an electric car in the City of New York.

[Applause]

And we have one of the largest municipal fleets on Earth, and by 2025 every single one will be electric. And that’s a way forward.

And we know that every one of us in government has power beyond the power of treaties and laws – we have our purchasing power. So, we’re going to take the half-billion dollars we spend every year for electricity, and we’re going to make clear that the only kind of electricity we want is from renewable sources. We’re going to help foster solar development and wind development using the purchasing power of the City of New York.

We’ve already seen an incredible greater interest in solar from our people – solar use has increased three times in New York City. Government use of solar has increased 13 times in just two years. This is the way forward.

I’ll finish with a simple thought – we’ve heard from Pope Francis, as I mentioned, a call to arms [inaudible] that gives us the moral grounding for all we are doing. 

I had the honor of going to the Vatican last year for discussion with leaders around the world – Governor Brown was there, and so many mayors from around the world. And we heard a very simple concept in one of the panels. Professor Jeffery Sachs had a simple notion – we must strand fossil fuel resources in the ground if we’re going to save this Earth. That means we have to change our assumptions, change our expectations, change our lifestyles. We have proven today that we’re capable of change. But there’s so much more up ahead.

My hope for all of us is that today will be not just seen as a moment when the world turned in the right direction but that we all will be authors of much greater achievements in addressing climate change – that someday we’ll be able to look back on this as a small achievement. As glorious as it is, someday we’ll be able to look back and say, we got even farther still. That is our mandate and that is what we owe the next generation.

Thank you, and God bless you all.

[Applause]