Home / USA Today: This state is quickly becoming America’s clean energy paradise. Here’s how it’s happening.
“Americans don’t have to imagine what it’s like to live someplace that’s aggressively switching to 100% clean energy, where 1 in 3 people have rooftop solar, 15% of new cars are electric and giant batteries store energy for use when the sun goes down.
They just have to go to Hawaii.
Hawaii pledged to be “Coal free by ’23,” and state law requires 100% clean energy in just 21 years. Attaining that goal came closer last month when an enormous 185-megawatt battery near Honolulu hummed into full operation.
‘If you’ve been to Hawaii, you’ve seen a renewable future – and it’s paradise,’ said Jeff Mikulina director of the Hawaii Climate Coalition and a board member of the Blue Planet Foundation.”
Launched on June 1, 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by the previous administration’s 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 continue to demonstrate that climate action goes hand-in-hand with economic growth, job creation, and better public health. 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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