New York

Since 2017, New York Communities for Change (NYCC) has built hard-hitting multi-racial campaigns to win transformative results. In large part, their climate-focused work began in response to the devastation that Superstorm Sandy wrecked on the organization’s membership. NYCC attacks the linked crises of inequality and climate change. In order to win, NYCC combines its base in low-income communities of color with the predominantly white progressives who are active on climate to bring powerful pressure on specific governmental and corporate decision makers for major results. This report describes NYCC campaigns from 2017-2022. Some highest-impact winning campaigns: NYC pension divestment, enacting local law 97, stopping the Williams NESE pipeline, cracking BlackRock, removing Lee Raymond from the JP Morgan Chase board, and stopping new fracked gas power plants, all won alongside allies. NYCC hopes that activists, foundation funders, donors, and leaders take a close look at this kind of organizing and base building work.

New York State passed the Build Public Renewables Act in May 2023. In this resource, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò spoke with three organizers from the NYC-DSA Ecosocialist Working Group who campaigned for the legislation. Socialists in New York City spearheaded the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) to authorize and mandate the public power authority, the New York Power Authority (NYPA), to build, develop, and own renewable energy in the state to meet the climate goals set in 2019 to decarbonize the state’s energy system. DSA also wanted to create discounted utility rates for low- to moderate-income communities because people are struggling to pay their energy bills, as well as close down all of NYPA’s gas peaker plants, which are primarily located in Black and brown neighborhoods. The campaign built relationships with environmental justice organizations like WE ACT, other DSA chapters, groups like Sane Energy Project, For the Many, Food & Water Watch, and Sunrise NYC—and it was tougher to power map to get labor unions to support the bill and get it over the finish line. DSA-endorsed legislators were crucial to pushing the policy inside the state legislature. This long-form interview includes many other descriptions of the campaign.