“Can states really step in to this chaos of half-completed programs and funding fights and pick up the reins?
The US Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors formed after Trump first entered office in 2017, responds with an emphatic yes.
‘While we’ve had a strong partnership with the federal government over the past four years, we’re also well prepared for the moment we’re in today,’ says Alliance Communications Director Evan Westrup. ‘Our governors will help fill the void.’
Climate Mayors, a bipartisan network of 350 mayors across 46 states, says they are also ready to take on the climate crisis in the absence of federal dollars. Mayors ‘remain steadfast in their commitment to advancing climate action,’ said Executive Director Kate Wright in an email.
Both organizations have made significant strides since their founding. They have advanced electrification of city buses; low-carbon building standards; methane mitigation from industrial sources; nature-based climate solutions for farms and working lands; climate finance systems; cap-and-invest programs (California and Washington); and, in the cases of Vermont and New York, ‘polluter pay’ systems that force the state’s fossil fuel companies to help pay into climate change funds. Actions by the Alliance have reduced greenhouse gases by 25 percent, according to their 2024 report.
States can take these actions because of powers granted to them in the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution, which gives states broad authority over education, transportation, the environment, public safety, and other issues. ‘This does not change with a shift in federal administration,’ Westrup says.”
Launched on June 1, 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by President Trump’s initial decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60% of the U.S. economy and 55% of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28% by 2025, 50-52% by 2030, and 61-66% by 2035, all below 2005 levels, and collectively achieve overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practicable, and no later than 2050.
The Alliance’s states and territories will continue to advance innovative and impactful climate solutions to grow the economy, create jobs, and protect public health, and have a long record of action and results. In fact, the Alliance reduced its collective net greenhouse gas emissions by 19% between 2005 and 2022, while increasing collective GDP by 30%, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal by reducing collective GHG emissions 26% below 2005 levels by 2025. The coalition’s states and territories are employing more workers in the clean energy sector, achieving lower levels of dangerous air pollutants, and preparing more effectively for climate impacts and executing more pre-disaster planning than the rest of the country.
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