NY Climate Tech: May 15 - May 21, 2023
Clean energy transitions, mussels, and kelp cruises! We know how to keep climate cool in the Big Apple!
Hi friends,
April showers bring May flowers — we hope you all are enjoying the 10/10 spring weather bliss! This weeks climate events are also 10/10, delivering a full array of colorful options to serve all your interests. Some of our favorites:
Monday: 🌆 Data-Driven Urban Tech Workshop with our friends at Cornell Tech
Tuesday: 🍽️ Women and Climate Spring Dinner because who doesn’t love good food and good conversation with your favorite climate feminists?!
Wednesday: 🏡 Monthly Forum: Should Your Building Convert to Heat Pumps? (obvi!!!)
Thursday: 💨 Wind-Win Startup Showdown for all our clean energy needs (there are a lot of them, see below!)
Friday: ☁️ ClairCon | Clean Air Con with our friends all the way down in Mexico City!
And while you’re at it, don’t forget to check out 🥬 AeroFarms Sensory Tasting, 🦪 Infinite Mussel Party, and 🛶 Newtown Creek Kelp Cruise — we’re the Big Apple, we definitely know how to keep climate interesting here!
Cheers,
The NY Climate Tech Team
Climate Change, Energy Change, and the Future of GHG Emissions
At NY Climate Tech, we’re excited to kick off this month’s theme focused on the relationship between energy and climate, and key drivers in the clean energy transition.
Energy–powering industry, transport, homes, this very device you’re reading on–contributes to around 60% of global greenhouse emissions. Despite progress from renewables, around 80% of global energy is still derived from fossil fuels. Thus, decoupling energy access from carbon intensive sources is essential for reaching global climate targets.
Last year in the US, renewables surpassed coal for the first time as a source of electric power generation. But cleaner electricity is only a piece of the puzzle. In the US, only about 40% of total energy is used for electricity generation. Traditionally fossil fuel heavy industries like transport are two sectors with the greatest opportunity for electrification.
The IEA (International Energy Agency) identifies the key pillars of energy decarbonization as energy efficiency, behavioral changes, electrification, renewables, low carbon fuels, and carbon capture and storage. There remains significant gaps across all pillars when tracking against the 2050 net zero emissions scenario, and concerted efforts in policy, investments, technology commercialization & more are needed to accelerate the massive systems transition towards affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
In 2019, NYC City Council passed the Climate Mobilization Act, a package of legislation aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. To achieve this goal, the city has implemented several initiatives, including the expansion of renewable energy and phased caps on building emissions (known as Local Law 97).
In the coming weeks, we’ll take a close look at what’s working, what’s needed, and local efforts to accelerate the clean energy transition!
Community Shoutouts
Win Climate has a new podcast episode on passing the NY Gas Ban
After a years-long drought, New York State just passed three major climate bills! Albany lobbyist extraordinaire Liz Moran from Earthjustice joins John and Juan-Pablo to break down the All-Electric Building Act, Build Public Renewables Act, and Cap & Invest Fund policies, and the awesome coalitions who won them: #GasFreeNY, Renewable Heat Now!, Public Power NY, and NYRenews.
Climate Startups and Climate Talent: Come One, Come All!
NY Climate Tech and Streetlife Ventures are launching new platforms to support climate founders, funders, and career transitioners! There is no shortage of great companies raising money for their groundbreaking ideas, great investors looking to support with capital, and great talent living the mantra that every job is a climate job. Streetlife Ventures, co-founded by NY Climate Tech’s very own Sonam Velani, is excited to support these efforts across our community. We can’t wait to hear from you!
Climate Tech Pitch Night
We’re launching a new Climate Tech Pitch Night! We want to provide a platform for local entrepreneurs to practice pitching and receive feedback from a curated panel of experts. We know how important selling a story can be - and we want to help! The first of these events will be on July 20 - if you’re interested in pitching your great idea, apply here!
Events This Week
🌆 Data-Driven Urban Tech Workshop: Mon, May 15
🌿 The Social Drivers of Deep Decarbonization: Tue, May 16
🍽️ Women and Climate Spring Dinner: Tue, May 16
🏢 NYSERDA's Grid-Interactive Building Showcase: Wed, May 17
✍️ Islands & Rivers: Poetry Amid Climate Change: Wed, May 17
♻️ Design for Ecosystems: Wed, May 17
🏡 Monthly Forum: Should Your Building Convert to Heat Pumps?: Wed, May 17
⚡️ YPE NYC May Happy Hour: Wed, May 17
🥬 AeroFarms Sensory Tasting + Marketing Discussion: Thu, May 18
📖 Islands & Rivers: the Art of the Possible Amid Climate Change: Thu, May 18
🌦️ AI Climate Modeling and Full AI Weather Prediction: Thu, May 18
👩🌾 The Vegan Women Summit 2023: Thu, May 18
💨 Wind-Win Startup Showdown: Thu, May 18
🦪 Infinite Mussel Party: Thu, May 18
💃 Climate Art Celebration!: Thu, May 18
☁️ ClairCon | Clean Air Con: Fri, May 19
📣 NYCxDESIGN Climate Meetup for Advertising and PR Pros: Fri, May 19
☘️ The 2023 Energy Round Table Green Economy: Fri, May 19
🛣️ BQE 2053: Public Symposium: Sat, May 20
🧺 Third Act NYC Picnic: Sat, May 20
🛶 Newtown Creek Kelp Cruise: Sat, May 20
⚖️ Environmental Justice Street Fair: Sat, May 20
Read on for more details about this week’s happenings and upcoming events this month
Events This Month
🌍 Spring Talk with Dr. Noah Walker-Crawford: Mon, May 22
💨 NYC Offshore Wind Drinks: Tue, May 23
👩💼 Women in Cleantech Part III: The State of Climate Investment: Wed, May 24
⚖️ Environmental Justice Symposium: Thu, May 25
⛽️ The Future of Gas in New York State: Thu, May 25
🎞️ Environmental Advocacy & Exploration On Screen: Thu, May 25
🎼 Earth Protectors: Sat, May 27
☘️ Corporate Responsibility in the Digital Age: KindLink US Launch: Tue, May 30
6️⃣ Carbon: Support functions in corporate transformations: Wed, May 31
☕️ Climate Cafe: Thu, Jun 1
Events This Week
🌆 Data-Driven Urban Tech Workshop
When: Mon, May 15th from 9:30 AM to 2:00 PM
Where: 2 West Loop Road, Bloomberg Center, New York, NY 10044
This workshop will consider how machine learning and data-driven approaches can be used to improve quality of life in urban environments.
🧩 Shaping Climate Futures: The Social Drivers of Deep Decarbonization
When: Tue, May 16th from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Where: Consulate General of Germany, 23rd Floor Restaurant, 871 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017
In a new study from Universität Hamburg's (UHH) "Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society" (CLICCS) researchers found that keeping the 1.5°C temperature target is currently not plausible. The researchers came to this conclusion by analyzing social drivers and physical processes, taking disruptive events into account, such as the COVID19-pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The study finds that social drivers play a key role in decarbonization, but they are currently insufficient to reach deep decarbonization by 2050, which is necessary to attain the Paris Agreement temperature goals.
🍽️ Women and Climate Spring Dinner
When: Tue, May 16th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Where: Kitchen at Cobble Hill
New Yorkers, the wait is finally over: we are back with a new edition of our Women and Climate dinner series! If you are looking for an opportunity to talk climate with professionals identifying as women or nonbinary, you are in the right place! No climate experience necessary.
🏢 NYSERDA's Grid-Interactive Building Showcase
When: Wed, May 17th from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Where: Building Energy Exchange
Join BE-Ex and NYSERDA for an industry showcase of Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings, exploring existing solutions for demand flexibility that leverage smart technology coupled with deep energy retrofits to reduce operating costs, meet climate objectives, and increase grid stability.
✍️ Islands & Rivers: Poetry and the Art of the Possible Amid Climate Change
When: Wed, May 17th from 4:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Where: The Skylight Room, The Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Islands & Rivers: Poetry and the Art of the Possible in the Age of Climate Change is a two-day series of gatherings, performances, screenings, poetry readings, discussions and workshops with an aim to bring creative, humanistic practices to bear on environmental justice work.Islands & Rivers begins Wed, May 17th at 4pm in the Skylight Room at the CUNY Graduate Center with a night of environmental poetry grounded in water-based and island-born knowledgeways integral to our understanding and implementation of climate adaptation and just transition writ large. Programming continues the following day at LaGuardia Community College.
♻️ Design for Ecosystems
When: Wed, May 17th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: City Tech - New Academic Building, 285 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
“Good Trouble: Creativity + Collaboration” features architects, academics and change makers - and considers solutions to some of the most pressing problems in the built environment. The AIA framework for design excellence serves as an anchor and a springboard to explore sustainability, inclusivity and resilience in our borough, our city, and beyond. This month's event is "Design for Ecosystems"
🏡 Monthly Forum: Should Your Building Convert to Heat Pumps?
When: Wed, May 17th from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: Häfele America Co. Showroom, 20 West 22nd Street, Suite 201, New York, NY 10010
Join GreenHomeNYC at this month's Forum for an in-person presentation and Q&A event.Tom and Lisa are back to talk in detail about the longer-term results of the 2020 multi-split heat pump conversion they manage. The project, which converted a 10-unit multifamily building from oil-fired 1-pipe steam space heat to individual multi-split heat pumps in each apartment, has attracted a lot of attention and has stimulated many buildings to consider doing the same.
⚡️ YPE NYC May Happy Hour
When: Wed, May 17th from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Where: 7 E 36th St, New York, NY 10016
YPE NYC is hosting an in-person happy hour! Please join YPE NYC and the energy community for an evening of casual drinks. We will be gathering at 5th & Mad (private section). Come grab a drink with us and discuss the latest in the NYC energy world with professionals from the utility, power, energy finance, law, and policy community.
🥬 AeroFarms FlavorSpectrum™ Sensory Tasting + Marketing Discussion
When: Thu, May 18th from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Where: AeroFarms, 212 Rome St, Newark, NJ
Join AMA New Jersey at AeroFarms, for a rare, up-close peek into world of this award-winning indoor vertical farm in Newark, NJ. The company is known beyond the Garden State for its innovation, and is growing its operations in Virginia and Abu Dhabi. At the May 18 event in Newark, you'll learn more about their FlavorSpectrum™ philosophy, and enjoy a greens tasting and light bites.
📖 Islands & Rivers: Poetry and the Art of the Possible Amid Climate Change 2
When: Thu, May 18th from 2:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Where: LaGuardia Community College, 31-10 Thomson Avenue, Queens, NY 11101
Islands & Rivers continues programming with day 2 at LaGuardia Community College in the Little Theater with a poetry/storytelling/spoken word workshop for LaGuardia students wishing to give voice and form to their own environmental autobiographies.
🌦️ AI Climate Modeling and Full AI Weather Prediction
When: Thu, May 18th from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM
Where: Columbia Innovation Hub Room 202, 2276 12th Avenue Room 206, New York, NY 10027
The focus will be on the unsolved challenge of controlling stubborn prognostic error growth in such hybrid AI climate models and the emerging potential of physical renormalizations to achieve “climate invariance” and prognostic reliability.
👩🌾 The Vegan Women Summit 2023
When: Thu, May 18th at 5:30 PM to Sat, May 20th at 4:00 PM
Where: 99 Scott Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11237
The only summit in the world where you’ll hear from the world’s top CEOs, celebrities, athletes, investors, and activists working to build a kinder, more sustainable future -- together. You’ll be inspired by first-of-its-kind fireside chats with changemakers, learn directly from industry titans, and be empowered to accelerate your professional and personal growth, all while you network with hundreds of like-minded industry professionals.
💨 Wind-Win Startup Showdown
When: Thu, May 18th from 5:30 PM to 9:00 PM
Where: Housing Works Bookstore 126 Crosby Street New York, NY 10012
Curious about innovations in offshore wind technologies? Join us for an evening of startup pitches from the finalists of the Offshore Wind Innovation Hub Accelerator program. This will be a lively startup showdown and your chance to meet the innovators and the wider offshore wind ecosystem.
🦪 Infinite Mussel Party
When: Thu, May 18th from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Where: RETI Field Station at GBX Gowanus Bay Terminal, 701 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
This year's Infinite Mussel Party will honor Urban Ocean Lab and the important work they do. Join us on for a party at the RETI Field Station sponsored by GBX~ Gowanus Bay Terminal where we'll eat, drink and enjoy a night on the waterfront.
💃 Climate Art Celebration!
When: Thu, May 18th at 8:00 PM to Mon, May 8th at 10:00 PM
Where: 1155 6th Avenue, New York, New York
Welcome to the “Nightclub of the Future!” Join Future Meets Present, Groundcycle, and Climate Cafe for an evening of performances and the opportunity to mingle with local activist groups in New York City. We’ll be creating a space to celebrate Earth Month wins, enjoy refreshments, and have fun with folks in the climate movement! Whether you’re a seasoned climate activist, sustainability professional, or just curious to learn more and get involved with climate action, we’ve got something for you! For just $10, not only will you gain admission to our event, but you’ll also receive a complimentary drink. We highly recommend arriving early for a $35 open bar and exclusive gallery tour from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. This is a 21+ event.
☁️ ClairCon | Clean Air Con
When: Fri, May 19th at 9:45 AM to Sat, May 20th at 1:45 PM
Where: Hybrid | Roosevelt Island, NY
Join 15 world-class experts on a two-day hybrid event where they will share their knowledge, experience, and insights on cleantech and economic decarbonization. After our virtual conferences, join us for a drink at our networking events in NYC and CDMX, where you will meet people from diverse backgrounds and geographies.
📣 NYCxDESIGN Climate Meetup for Advertising and PR Pros, with Clean Creatives
When: Fri, May 19th from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Where: 425 W. 15th Street, New York, NY 10011
Join us during NYCxDESIGN Festival at a climate meetup for ad and PR professionals, organizers, and climate leaders! Connect with other leaders in our industry who are working to end fossil fuel misinformation, and make climate action possible.
☘️ The 2023 Energy Round Table Green Economy
When: Fri, May 19th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: 450 Clarkson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11203
On May 19, 2023, we will host the 2023 Energy Round Table Event located at SUNY Down State Medical Center. This event will center around HR 5376 (IRA) and how this law impacts the 9th Congressional District, individuals, Small Businesses, Nonprofits, Personal Energy Costs, and the opportunities for creating a New Green Economy. Specific attention will be focused on the relationships between federal, state, & city regarding this legislation.
🛣️ BQE 2053: Public Symposium
When: Sat, May 20th from 12:00 AM to 5:30 PM
Where: New York Harbor School, 550 Short Avenue New York, NY 10004
Four diverse panels will focus attention on community engagement in deciding the future development of a potential ‘land bank’ between existing neighborhoods and a radically re-imagined Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE).
🧺 Third Act NYC Picnic
When: Sat, May 20th from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Where: West 69th Street & Central Park West
Come meet fellow Third Actors, discuss where we are and where we're going, and just have some fun (and a nosh)! Third Act is building a community of Americans over the age of sixty determined to change the world for the better, with a focus on climate change.
🛶 Newtown Creek Kelp Cruise
When: Sat, May 20th from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Where: Manhattan Avenue Park, Brooklyn, NY 11222
We have been farming kelp here in New York City for two years and we are excited to share it with you! Guided by experts from the North Brooklyn Community Boathouse, we will depart in two gorgeous 29’ canoes to explore Newtown Creek and experience our multiple kelp restoration sites.
⚖️ Environmental Justice Street Fair
When: Sat, May 20th from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Where: 31st Ave, Queens, NY
Join us and many other organizations to learn about important climate issues and how you can help! There will be free giveaways and fun activities for all! We will be joined by esteemed assembly member Jessica González-Rojas, and city council member Tiffany Cabán, as well as many other climate based organizations .
Join the Fun!
Submit Events
We know all of you are cooking up great events across that highlight the latest and greatest in our collective effort to save our city - and our planet! 🌍 We would love to spread the word. Please share any event details and we'll add them to the list!
Climate Tech Cities
We are expanding! We started as an 8-person dinner and now have over 4,000 members in our community. We’ve had people across the world reach out to us to start their own chapters - so we’re launching a new Climate Tech Cities organization this year! If you have friends who are interested in becoming chapter leads, please share the word. Here’s to a global network of local communities making a positive impact!