A smiling Governor Andrew Cuomo, with Al Gore to his right and a rapturous crowd of Democratic dignitaries at his rear, signed into law a new statute last week that he proudly touted as “the most aggressive climate law in the United States of America.” The explicit objective of the new legislation is to reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions in New York by 85 percent by 2050.

Step one in that direction is the authorization of two huge, offshore wind power projects said to generate enough power to support one million homes. The legislation goes hand-in-hand with Cuomo’s aggressive executive action to block any new pipeline construction within the state, most notably the Williams pipeline designed to bring about 400 million cubic feet of natural gas each day to New York City.

The rationales for the law are contained in the statutory preamble, which makes declarations that are either flatly wrong or overly inflated. One of the more contentious claims is that the only way to minimize the risk of severe climate change is to follow the highly flawed October 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) special report, which insists that maintaining temperature increases to under 1.5°C in perpetuity requires keeping carbon dioxide concentrations in the earth’s atmosphere below 450 parts per million (its present level is 412 ppm). The effects of climate change allegedly include temperature rises, sea level rises of one foot since 1900, and a higher frequency of “extreme and unusual weather events,” including ones like Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. The New York legislation notes that environmental policies “should prioritize the safety and health of disadvantaged communities. . .” It also treats New York as a role model that will “encourage” other jurisdictions to follow suit with “complementary” legislation.