Giving Compass' Take:

• Greta Moran explains how New York City's climate change action plan can act as a model for other cities working out how to address climate change. 

• How can funders help cities to formulate and execute climate change strategies? 

• Learn what your city will look like in 2080.

Under a bleak gray sky, Maritza Silva-Farrell, the executive director of ALIGN, mounted a podium in front of New York City Hall. She reminded an enthusiastic crowd of labor, environmental, and community organizers of what brought them together—the devastating impact climate change has already had on the city. "We're talking about 400,000 New Yorkers," she said, referring to the those living in the city's floodplains during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. "Their lives changed forever."

A couple hours later, New York City passed groundbreaking climate legislation, including the largest mandated pollution reduction in any city in the world, just ahead of Earth Day. "Future generations will look back at this moment and they will think of this as one of the most important bills," Bill Lipton, the director of the Working Families Party, told the crowd at City Hall. "We are starting to turn a corner."

The New York Climate Mobilization Act is actually a suite of 10 bills, most notably the landmark "Dirty Buildings" law. The bill, introduced by New York Councilman Costa Constantinides, mandates that New York's tallest buildings—those over 25,000 feet—will need to slash their emissions through energy-efficient building upgrades. This targets New York City's surprising worst polluter—skyscrapers—while also creating thousands of jobs in design, renovation, and construction.

Read the full article about how cities could deal with climate change by Greta Moran at Pacific Standard.