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US-POLITICS-CLIMATE-NEWYORK
New York to spend $500 million for Manhattan flood protection
NEW YORK, March 15, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – New York will invest $500 million to
protect part of the US business and cultural capital Manhattan from climate
change, the municipality said on Thursday.
It is allocating the funds to four projects aimed at protecting areas at
risk on the southern tip of Manhattan. Among the projects is a permanent
protective wall south of Battery Park City, which is a few blocks from Wall
Street.
The funding is just a fraction of the estimated $10 billion which New
York’s Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday said would be needed to
protect southern Manhattan. A substantial portion of this budget is yet to be
funded, and will likely require the support of the federal government.
Republican President Donald Trump has rejected his own government’s
National Climate Assessment warning of massive economic losses if carbon
emissions continue to feed climate change unchecked.
He also pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord, under which nations
agreed to limit global temperature rises this century to below two degrees
Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), and under 1.5C if possible.
The south Manhattan area was one of the hardest-hit by Hurricane Sandy,
which killed about 40 people in the city in October 2012. It cost the state
$42 billion after unleashing nine-foot (three-meter) floods across coastal
New York and New Jersey.
By 2050, 37 percent of buildings in Manhattan’s southern tip would be at
risk of flooding, the New York City Economic Development Corp said in a study
published Thursday.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0937 hrs