New York politicians are extremely worried about the threat of global climate change.

Their only bigger worry is that the voters will learn what they plan to do about it.

More than one year past Albany’s self-imposed deadline to make rules for major greenhouse-gas cuts, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature used the annual budget to yet again hit the snooze button on a top climate initiative.

This time, the governor paused a law requiring school districts to buy electric schoolbuses for their fleets. 

It joins Hochul’s growing list of delays on climate initiatives that would cause New Yorkers pain — consequences she does not want voters to feel until her next term.

The list of deferments includes a tax-like “cap-and-invest” carbon-mitigation scheme, collecting billions from fossil-fuel producers in a “Climate Superfund” and rules mandating zero-emission truck sales in the Empire State.

The zero-emission schoolbus mandate makes school districts the canaries in the green-economy coal mine.

Under the law, no fossil-fueled school buses may be on the roads starting in 2035.

That means school districts, many of which operate under 10-year replacement schedules, should be buying zero-emission electric schoolbuses now. 

But the high cost of electric buses — more than double the average price of gas- or diesel-fueled models — has made those purchases a budgetary impossibility for many districts.

Absent substantial federal and state subsidies, today’s electric schoolbuses can’t compete economically with fossil-fueled ones.

The governor’s legal tweak shows the rubber is meeting the road on the electric-schoolbus mandate, as policy makers cave to reality and political pressure. 

The same is true for other green initiatives. 

The Empire State’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act set some incredible goals, including cutting statewide carbon emissions by about a quarter by 2030.

Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post’s signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here!

Ambitious?

Sure.

Realistic?

Not likely.

Emissions have barely fallen in the years since — mainly because former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration effectively swapped a (zero-emission) nuclear power plant, Indian Point, for new natural-gas plants.

When Cuomo signed the CLCPA into law in 2019, he ensured that none of its effects could occur until well after he’d have been sworn in for his anticipated fourth consecutive term.

The CLCPA’s implementing regulations were not due until January 2024 — a deadline Hochul ignored.

Hochul this spring pumped the brakes again on cap-and-invest, New York’s most onerous CLCPA program — kicking it past the next election into a “data-gathering phase.”

That process won’t wrap up until June 2027 — months after she’s hoping to sail into a second term. 

Why the wait? Because no one’s going to like it when the cap-and-invest bills start coming due and prices go up — or energy-intensive businesses begin leaving the state. 

Cap-and-invest is a tax on energy masquerading as a climate fix, and the latest delay only deepens doubts that Albany Democrats are serious about addressing the climate change-induced “existential crisis” they claim we face.

Kind of like insisting every climate change-related project be staffed at union-level wages.  

A cynical Albany watcher may surmise that the delay gives Hochul another election cycle for campaign donors subject to cap-and-invest to lobby for special treatment under the new program.

Meanwhile, less-connected businesses are left twisting in the wind, unsure of future costs, while climate diehards fume over missed deadlines.

Energy users dodge the bill for now, but it’s coming — whenever the state Department of Environmental Conservation gets untethered from Hochul’s political ambitions. 

But here’s the real kicker: Even if the Empire State can can pull it off, its emissions cuts won’t move the needle on global climate change.

New York leaders are chasing a fantasy when they could be focusing on something that actually matters — like shoreline protection, flood mitigation, public cooling centers and similar projects.

The Climate Superfund Act is supposed to fund climate change adaptation measures like these on the backs of fossil-fuel producers (and their customers). It’s based on a climate-change-damages theory derived from tobacco litigation.

But when she signed it into law this year, Hochul insisted on setting effective dates for charging the penalties after her next election. 

None of this is to deny climate change — if true, it’s a real problem, and an ugly one.

But New York’s not the hero in this story. The planet won’t notice if New York hits its CLCPA goals. 

If Hochul and the DEC can’t execute a plan six years after making their big promises — never mind one that makes a dent globally — why should we trust them with our wallets or our future? 

Delay isn’t caution; it’s a cynical political calculation.

An existential crisis deserves better.

Cam Macdonald is an adjunct fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy and executive director of the Government Justice Center.