Burning fossil fuels from cars, trucks, and buses is responsible for the largest share of emissions from New York State. This share of emissions from transportation has been going up for at least three decades (see the figure, p.2). So without clean transportation, it will be very difficult for New York to reduce emissions to meet the state’s economy-wide climate target, which requires going back to 40 percent of the 1990 emissions level by 2030. To reach that target, the state needs to cut transportation emissions by almost half in the next 12 years.
Pollution from transportation is a leading environmental threat to our health. As in many large cities, New York City has high concentrations of particulate matter emissions in the air, dangerous pollutants that originate in the combustion of gasoline and diesel. The state’s health department has estimated these pollutants cause at least 3,000 deaths in the city every year from heart and lung disease, not to mention 2,000 hospital admissions for heart and lung problems and 6,000 emergency room visits for asthma (NYC Health n.d.).
