A mandate for renewable energy is authoritarian now? What? This is a great initiative.

The key is in the presence of the word "mandate".

Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by highly concentrated power, limited political pluralism, and the suppression of dissent, often enforced by a charismatic leader or elite group .

A mandate is an authoritative command, order, or authorization to act, typically given by a higher authority, such as voters, a court, or a governing body .

So in the sense that a mandate is passed by government, and governments are sometimes authoritarian? If your logic is stronger than that you'll need to explain it to me. I'm not saying Asian countries are not authoritarian, I take no stance on that, I just genuinely don't understand how mandates imply authoritarianism.

"Mandate" on publicly owned and constructed parking lots?

That is, parking lots paid for by government taxes?

Why is this mandate a bad idea?

Yes, it is.

Why cannot mandate what they want on their own parking lots? This is not about private properties.

The sensibility of a policy and the power dynamics of it’s application are orthogonal.

The idea of an 'owner' doing whatever they want on 'their' property is ridiculous. They bought that land with restrictions and an understanding that it was part of a regulatory framework. Should an 'owner' be able to set up an industrial chemical plant in the middle of a city without any regulation? How about an open pit mine? A gun range with no regulation? Should I be able to create a massive speaker system pointed at your house next door to drive you away with no consequences? All actions are actually interactions. Everything someone does on their property has impacts to others. We give 'owners' a lot of leeway but that shouldn't be unlimited. Requiring things like solar on roofs, or gutters on roofs, or restricting roof uses, etc etc are all valid concepts. It can, and should, be debated how far those regulations should go but 'get your government off my land' is never a good argument.

Every government tells property owners what they can and cant't do. Find one that doesn't, and you'll have found a failed state.

Your options are basically Somalia. Instead of "authoritarian" governments issuing "mandates" you'll get to deal with warlords that will just kill you, take your land, and do whatever you want with it.

Warlord won't kill you, that's just waste of ammo. They'll rob you same as government. There is no distinction really.

South Koreans give their government the authority to do such things because we understand that the government need authority to serve its people well. And if the government misuses its authority, we will revoke our permission.

Many Americans are permanently afraid of their government, and they have no confidence that their fellow citizens will man up and confront the government if necessary, so they'd rather have a permanently weakened government that can't serve its people well but somehow (miraculously) still capable of unleashing misery.

A comedic tragedy, really.

It says "public" parking lots, which maybe means government-owned ones, not private ones open to the public.