Mayor Michael Bloomberg Proposes $20 Billion Plan to Protect New York City From Threat of Climate Change [VIDEO]

New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a $20 billion-plus plan on June 11 designed not only to address the continued aftermath of areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, but increase the city's ability to withstand increasingly variable and extreme weather as a result of global warming.

The far-reaching agenda calls for an extensive network of flood walls, levees and bulkheads along its 520-mile coast as well as fortifications of the city's infrastructure, including the power grid, and renovation of buildings to withstand hurricanes.

The proposal, despite coming in the eleventh hour of the mayor's tenure, is one of his largest and will require attending to far after he is out of office. Still, he has pressed the urgency of the situation and the need to act immediately, pointing to the devastation and loss associated to Sandy as evidence.

"This plan is incredibly ambitious - and much of the work will extend far beyond the next 203 days - but we refused to pass the responsibility for creating a plan onto the next administration," he said in a speech at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, according to The New York Times. "This is urgent work, and it must begin now."

In all, the report details 250 recommendations, and could eventually amount to far more than current estimates.

However, according to Russell Unger, executive director of the Urban Green Council, it's a matter of when and not if in terms of future Sandy-esque storms.

"Another Sandy is inevitable, and New York isn't ready," he said in a statement issued today by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office. "But it can be. The task force recommendations are tangible and economically achievable steps."

Such were the updated findings the Bloomberg administration released June 10, outlining New York City's increasing vulnerability as a result of climate change.

Based on their research, administration officials estimated that more than 800,000 city residents will live in the 100-year flood plain by the 2050s, more than double the 398,000 currently estimated to be at risk, based on new maps the FEMA released Monday.

"Climate change has the potential to affect everyday life in New York City," the New York Academy of Sciences stated in the original report's abstract released in 2010, citing increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels and more intense and frequent weather events all as upcoming trials.