NYC and Carbon Emissions
Article by Talia K.
New York City and Carbon Emissions
1. NYC’s Climate Success
Picture the most eco-friendly, pro-nature place you can imagine. Is it in the countryside, with sweeping green fields, running brooks, and chirping birds? Can you smell the earthy soil, feel the roughness of the tree bark, see the towering mountains? Well, you may need to swap those fields of green for a familiar concrete grid. Despite being the state with the eighth-most carbon emissions,[1] each individual person in New York emits the least out of any other state (excluding the District of Columbia), suggesting that New Yorkers are some of the most carbon-efficient individuals in the entire country.[2]
It makes sense that New York has such an immense amount of emissions, given the scale of our economy and our population size, yet what is so extraordinary is the fact that despite being packed into a grid of concrete that might seem the farthest thing from green, the average New York City resident emits only two thirds as much as the average American household (29 to 43 tons).[3] All those wide, open plains don’t seem to be all that climate-forward anymore.
This table, produced by the EcoDataLab, breaks down what makes New York City’s per capita emissions so much lower than the rest of the country:
As you can see, while most of these categories are more or less equal, the starkest change is by and far transportation. By getting around on public transit, our city-wide transportation emissions are over a third lower than the national average, where every individual person must rely on their own car to get anywhere. Plus, most of the time, we don’t have to go all that far – with residential and commercial buildings often close by each other, making a quick trip to the grocery store is often far more climate-effective in New York City than in a place where you have to take a long, carbon-emitting drive just to purchase your necessities.[4]
2..… And Its Climate Failures
Still, New York City is far from a climate utopia. While a New Yorker tends to emit significantly less carbon than someone from a different state, our buildings tell quite a different climate story. Buildings represent the vast majority of carbon emissions here, as shown by this chart from the New York City Comptroller’s office:[5]
We may lead the nation with our transportation emissions, but our buildings’ energy usage is utterly shameful. There is no way the city can ever achieve the 2050 goal of reducing greenhouse gas levels by 80% if we do not greatly reduce emissions in this sector, since buildings’ emissions alone represent well over half of the amount of our target levels.
Let’s compare our per capita buildings emissions to the rest of the country, after having done so well in the transportation comparison. With buildings in New York City emitting a total of 36.66 million tons of greenhouse gases, and with a population of about 8.258 million, this amounts to an annual per capita emission of about 4.44 tons of carbon dioxide. The national per capita average? 1.56.[6]
One cause of this enormous gap are the highly coveted prewar buildings, as they are equipped with outdated features like poor insulation and heaters under windows that lead to unnecessary energy waste. Modern buildings are part of the problem, too: Glass buildings trap heat easily throughout the summer, meaning they require huge amounts of energy to be air conditioned all season, leading to egregious amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.[7] Plus, buildings in New York City tend to be much bigger than buildings elsewhere, which, of course, means they simply need more energy and therefore emit more carbon.
This is an issue with immediate repercussions not only for our planet, but for our health. When furnaces and boilers burn gas or oil to produce heat, besides emitting greenhouse gases that warm our planet, they also emit dangerous pollutants as byproducts, which have been proven to lead to severe health conditions and even premature deaths. In fact, in 2017 (the most recent available data), these pollutants caused approximately 1,114 premature deaths and more than $12.5 billion in health damages in New York City.[8] None of this harm would have occurred with a sustainable, efficient energy system in place for our buildings. One of these pollutants is especially dangerous: NOx (nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide), which contribute to air pollution by reacting with elements in the atmosphere to create ozone. As a result of buildings’ NOx pollution, ozone levels in New York City exceed EPA limits, as can be seen in these graphics by the Rocky Mountain Institute:
This greatly harms NYC’s air quality, and above all, the air quality for communities of color; Black New Yorkers face 32% higher exposure than white New Yorkers.[9] This danger poses serious health risks for thousands of people, and cannot be taken lightly – it is far more than an abstract, distant issue, but an immediate one with immediate dangers.
3. What Can Be Done?
Ultimately, it’s clear that New York City is a fairly climate-friendly place to live thanks to its transportation system, but it still has quite a bit of room to improve with its buildings. In a city so packed with people, our failures ring louder, but our successes can, too, so it is imperative that we act now to help save our future.
In 2019, the City Council passed Local Law 97, which limits the amount of carbon buildings over 25,000 square feet can emit. The first reports on the success of this policy were due in May 2025, and we’ll have to wait and see if this program was effective and if the government will actually enforce it with fines and consequences for those who fail to curb their emissions.[10]
Beyond using less energy, though, it is essential that New York City’s buildings make the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable sources of energy. Currently, the vast majority of New York City’s power supply comes from fossil fuels, as can be seen in this graph from the New York City Comptroller’s Office:[11]
This graph demonstrates our outsized and untenable reliance on fossil fuels; if we want to make sizable, long-lasting change, we have to make serious changes to our power system. Investing in solar, wind, and hydropower are essential to actually make progress in New York City’s carbon emissions, showing the world what can be done with climate. It’s time to embrace our city’s potential and ensure our buildings, not just our transportation, are sustainable and pro-climate.
End Notes:
Choose Energy, “Carbon Dioxide Emissions by State,” updated January 29, 2025, https://www.chooseenergy.com/data-center/carbon-dioxide-by-state/.
CBCNY, “Getting Greener,” December 9, 2019, https://cbcny.org/research/getting-greener#:~:text=As%20shown%20in%20Figure%206,a%20drop%20of%2021.7%20percent.&text=(See%20Figure%207.),offset%20New%20York's%20emission%20reductions.
EcoDataLab, “New York City Household Consumption-Based Emissions Inventory,” February, 2023, https://climate.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/NYC-Household-Consumption-GHG-Emissions-Inventory.pdf.
It’s also worthwhile to note that food is by far the largest factor in household emissions in New York, which the government is currently working to address through their compost mandate (for more information, read Anthony’s article that goes more in depth on this topic), meaning that if this policy is effective, these emissions could get even lower.
Office of the New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, “Emissions,” https://comptroller.nyc.gov/services/for-the-public/nyc-climate-dashboard/emissions/.
Our World In Data, “Per capita greenhouse gas emissions by sector, United States, 2021,” https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-sector?country=~USA.
Avery Orrall, “Opinion: New York City’s buildings are designed to leak energy. Retrofitting them may be the only option,” October 30, 2024, https://scienceline.org/2024/10/opinion-new-york-citys-buildings-are-designed-to-leak-energy-retrofitting-them-may-be-the-only-option/#:~:text=New%20York%20City%20is%20the,water%20heaters%20and%20poor%20insulation.
Stephen Mushegan and Talor Gruenwald, “New York Emits More Building Air Pollution Than Any Other State,” May 18, 2021, https://rmi.org/new-york-emits-more-building-air-pollution-than-any-other-state/.
Ibid.
Urban Green Council, “What Is Local Law 97?,” https://www.urbangreencouncil.org/what-we-do/driving-innovative-policy/ll97/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1854138178&gbraid=0AAAAADG2ckXJ64KW3KFNfrO13kLcj-yfs&gclid=CjwKCAjw24vBBhABEiwANFG7y-34ZE6kj7ZfDn26ZoJaNssxjbUtXi8ljlQeO8c7SLlYoLTYgcDkVRoCha4QAvD_BwE.
Office of the New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, “Energy,” https://comptroller.nyc.gov/services/for-the-public/nyc-climate-dashboard/energy/.
