“Since taking office, President Trump has been true to his word: pulling the country out of the Paris Agreement, cancelling U.S. global climate finance and severing international partnerships on climate, including stopping the participation of U.S. scientists in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is meeting in China this week.
With the U.S. NDC pledging a 61-66% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, that leaves state and other sub-national actors to do a lot of heavy lifting.
But Nate Hultman, director of the Centre for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, who worked on the submission, estimates that non-federal leadership could achieve 54-62% of emissions reduction by 2035, opens new tab if they strengthen existing policies. If they don’t, the U.S. would achieve only 33-43% emissions reductions, relative to 2005. There could also be significant health, economic and social impacts on communities.
In January, the co-chairs of the U.S .Climate Alliance of 24 state governors wrote to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary, Simon Steill: ‘Our states and territories continue to have broad authority under the U.S. Constitution to protect our progress and advance the climate solutions we need. This does not change with a shift in federal administration.’”
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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