Copyright Inside Climate News
As news broke on Tuesday night that Zohran Mamdani had won New York City’s mayoral contest by a decisive margin, advocates for environmental justice began celebrating—people jumped on chairs, clanged pots and pans in kitchens and danced raucously to New York anthems. Some environmental activists had been up since dawn volunteering to get out the vote in shirts bearing slogans like “climate baddies for Zohran,” and the celebration carried an undercurrent of exhaustion and relief. “Last night Mamdani told New Yorkers to breathe,” said Briana Carbajal, the state legislative manager for the northern Manhattan-based group WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “And today I think we’re all breathing cleaner air.” For groups that have spent years fighting to link climate policy to New York’s housing and affordability crises, Mamdani’s victory represents a structural shift. His campaign championed free buses, green schools and peaker plant closures, reframing climate policy as a quality-of-life issue, rather than a technocratic fix. “It’s a huge win for all of us in the climate and environmental justice field,” Carbajal said. From Protest to Partnership with Government Under outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, New York climate groups often found themselves fighting defensive battles: demanding enforcement of laws limiting emissions, highlighting the victims of flooding and extreme weather or fighting against new pipelines and gas power plants. Now, advocates say, they can finally imagine real collaboration. “We want to be talking to the mayor’s office about issues like thermal energy networks and renewable energy hubs, but those conversations weren’t going to take us nearly as far with the Adams administration,” said Kim Fraczek, director of the Sane Energy Project, which advocates for renewable energy. “Now we really feel we have an ally in [Mamdani], that he’ll amplify us.” From Harlem to Queens, advocates traced Mamdani’s credibility to a track record of local organizing. Fraczek recalled working alongside him in 2020 to block construction of a fracked gas power plant in Astoria. “He listened deeply and made sure every voice in the coalition was heard,” she said. “We know his integrity and the quality of his work; he’s our friend.” Mamdani’s campaign cast climate issues as central to his broader agenda for affordability in New York City, arguing that environmental reform and everyday quality of life are inseparable. He has emphasized that measures like decarbonizing buildings, electrifying infrastructure and expanding public transit aren’t just “green projects” but also tools to relieve the squeeze on working-class families. Shifting the State’s Political Winds Organizers see Mamdani’s victory rippling far beyond the city and moving the needle at the state level. Advocates like Fraczek hope the election’s results will send a message to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. “Our governor, she’s not a climate champion,” Fraczek said. “So we hope she sees what happened last night and that it’ll inspire her to prioritize people over giant corporations and tech billionaires.” Zaz Scott, lead coalition organizer at NY Renews, a statewide alliance that led the campaign to pass New York’s landmark Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, said the outcome “fundamentally changes the politics of the state.” The governor, they noted, has lagged in rolling out the law’s funding mechanism, a “cap-and-invest” program designed to channel revenue into clean-energy projects for communities disproportionately affected by climate issues. “No one from the federal government is coming to save us,” Scott said. “Action at the state level is crucial, and Mamdani’s win increases the pressure on Albany to deliver.” Scott said last night’s victory was really the result of “years, if not decades, of organizing,” noting in particular the efforts to get progressive candidates elected to the state legislature, which was how Mamdani launched his political career. When Mamdani announced his run for mayor, Scott said countless climate advocates from across their coalition went all in on the campaign. “This win is really about the movement behind him, all the people who took time off work and spent weekends knocking on doors for him,” they said. Of the roughly dozen climate advocates interviewed for this article, the majority noted that outside of their professional work, they had volunteered in their personal time for the Mamdani campaign. Engaging New Voters and Activists Advocates like Saiarchana Darira, who serves on the youth advisory council for the United Nations Ocean Decade, highlighted how Mamdani’s campaign energized a new generation of New Yorkers. “Youth are often excluded from policymaking spaces,” Darira said, noting that Mamdani will be the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century. “I hope to see Zohran find creative ways for participatory policymaking, where youth have an input on his climate policies.” Kathryn Gioiosa, co-executive director of TREEage, a student-led climate organization, said the Mamdani campaign also drew new and younger people into the climate movement. “It’s exciting to support someone you really believe in,” Gioiosa said. “Students were ready to throw down for Zohran. It was the first candidate a lot of them had ever campaigned for or been invested in.” During the primary, Gioiosa’s organization hosted a forum for hundreds of students to talk to the Democratic candidates, resulting in the young group voting overwhelmingly—by 93 percent—to endorse Mamdani. Gioiosa watched the election results come in with fellow activists in Queens, where she first met Mamdani in 2019, while working on local campaigns. When Gioiosa originally heard about Mamdani’s mayoral bid, she felt pessimistic about his odds. “We’ve had a lot of electoral losses in New York over the last few years. I wasn’t sure he could do it,” she said. But by March, Gioiosa saw the winds shifting. “Friends who never really talked about local politics were suddenly posting about Zohran on social media,” she said. “It was crazy to see how his campaign grew.” By Wednesday, election-night parties had given way to planning sessions. Amid the excitement and optimism, New York climate activists also offered critiques of Mamdani’s platform and said they were already sketching out strategies to push the incoming administration. “Keeping him accountable will be a big priority for us,” Gioiosa said. “Climate wasn’t one of his top three campaign issues. “But now,” she added, “we get to work with someone on these issues, instead of against them.”
