“In a counterintuitive way, the lack of federal climate ambition has made what action has occurred more resilient because states are doing their own things and collaborating with each other. If the country had established a grand governing body years ago — something like an Environmental Protection Agency but focused exclusively on climate change — the Trump administration could easily dismantle it.
‘States have been saying since the election that they retain the authority and the ability and the ambition to drive down pollution and keep America on track to meet its goals,’ said Casey Katims, executive director of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors (just one of them a Republican) focused on climate action. ‘This order is an indication that the president and this administration know that all of that is true.’
This is not the climate movement’s first tussle with an administration hostile to action. The U.S. Climate Alliance and America Is All In — a coalition of thousands of political, cultural, and business leaders — both formed after Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017. States also now regularly share information with each other, like the best ways to encourage the construction of energy-efficient buildings and to replace gas furnaces with electric heat pumps. They’re also collaborating to modernize their grids to meet the extra demand that comes with widespread electrification.”
Launched in 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by the U.S. federal government’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60 percent of the U.S. economy and 55 percent of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28 percent by 2025, 50-52 percent by 2030, and 61-66 percent 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 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 latest data shows that as of 2023, the Alliance has reduced its collective net greenhouse gas emissions by 24 percent below 2005 levels, while increasing collective GDP by 34 percent, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal of reducing collective greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
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