- In The News
- November 2024
USA Today: As Trump retakes White House, climate-change experts gird for another four-year fight
November 18, 2024
USA Today reports on how the climate community, including U.S. Climate Alliance governors, will continue progress during the incoming presidential administration.
“Among the groups helping will be the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 governors representing about half the country’s population and 60% of the economy.”
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“Some climate activists say there’s plenty of opportunity to boost both the economy and a ‘green’ agenda simultaneously, in part by investing in American-made wind turbines and electric vehicles, creating new jobs installing solar panels on homes, and developing new ways to farm with less water.
Lujan Grisham said investors know the importance of acting now, whether or not the White House is on board. Oil and gas extraction is the largest industry in New Mexico, but the state has also doubled its wind-energy production since 2019.
‘We have been in this position before … we know that the economics are on our side here. The climate economy works, and it has massive opportunity,’ said Lujan Grisham, who co-chairs the Climate Alliance. ‘The private sector in fact across the United States has mobilized trillions of dollars into the markets and there frankly isn’t any going back.’”
About the Alliance
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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