New York, NY According to mayor Michael Bloomberg and council speaker Christine Quinn, one of the world’s most comprehensive packages of legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing government, commercial, and residential buildings has been launched. A six-point plan, when enacted as part of PlaNYC, will reduce the city’s energy usage and save consumers money, while creating thousands of well-paying jobs and reducing the city’s carbon footprint. The six-point plan consists of four pieces of new legislation and two PlaNYC programs that will achieve carbon reductions, train workers for the estimated 19,000 construction jobs that will be created, and help finance energy-saving improvements using $16 million available from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The plan will also result in cleaner air, since emissions from boilers, furnaces, and local power plants will also be reduced.

According to the PlaNYC inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, almost 80% of the city’s carbon footprint comes from buildings’ energy use. Once implemented, the legislation will reduce citywide emissions by 5%, the equivalent of eliminating all carbon emissions from Oakland, Calif.

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