In the face of an uncertain climate change policy landscape, New York’s business community continues to raise questions about the state’s energy future — one of the most challenging issues we face as economic leaders, property owners, and employers.

Evidence of the challenges New York faces as it struggles to meet its clean energy targets continues to mount.

The state has acknowledged it will fall short of the 2030 renewable generation benchmark laid out in the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or CLCPA, due to a combination of rising costs, canceled renewable energy projects and high interest rates.

A report released this month by the New York Building Congress noted that energy demand is projected to increase by 90% by 2042, driven in part by electrification mandates, the rise in the use of AI, and an influx of large-scale economic development projects.

And Cornell University researchers who are studying the extent to which the state will require alternative means of energy production to ensure reliability have found that New York’s grid will need a new, yet-to-be-determined power source equal in size to today’s entire generating........

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