Cuomo & Gore Team Up to Fight Global Warming

By JOHN SAKELOS

Governor Andrew Cuomo, was joined by former Vice President Al Gore at Columbia University on Thursday to announce the signing of an energy initiative designed to make New York State the leader of the nation in combating climate change.

“To deny that climate change is real is to defy reason,” Cuomo said in front of a standing-room only crowd at the University’s Roone Arledge Auditorium. “I like to say that denial is never a successful life strategy, well In the case of climate change, denial is not a survival strategy.”

The signing of the “Under 2 MOU” initiative limits the increase of the global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius which an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists says is the warming threshold leading to catastrophic climate conditions which includes habitat shifting and alteration, severe drought, and food scarcity.

New York State has allied with California making the commitment to joining 42 jurisdictions, in 19 countries, on five continents, collectively representing more than $13.6 trillion in GDP and 474 million people, the two political leaders said.

Cuomo also announced his plan to reduce harmful emissions by creating North American carbon market partnerships with other states across the nation, as well as the Canadian provinces. The goal of the administration is to establish a mandate of reducing emissions by 40 percent by 2030, and 80 percent by 2050.

“If we join together and commit ourselves to tackle climate change, we can show the nation what is possible,” Cuomo said. “Let’s lead by example, it’s the best way to lead, it’s the only way to lead, it is the New York way to lead, and today is a great step forward.

Gore, who won an Oscar for the film “An Inconvenient Truth,” which stresses the imminent danger global warming poses to society, commended Cuomo’s decision to reduce carbon pollution saying it “is vital to solving the climate crisis.”

“New York’s efforts to reduce emission’s and join with others like California, Quebec, and Ontario, to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy sends a very strong signal to world leaders local, regional, and state governments are taking climate action now,” he said.

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP21, will be held in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.