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The Executive Director of the bipartisan United States Climate Alliance today issued the following statement regarding the Alliance’s continued commitment to address climate change and how the election outcome has created an opportunity for the U.S. federal government, in close partnership with states, to restore national climate leadership:
“Our communities are facing more serious threats from climate change today than when our governors formed the U.S. Climate Alliance just three years ago, with raging wildfires polluting the air our children and families breathe across the West, a record-setting hurricane season destroying homes across the Gulf and East Coasts, and extremes of flood and drought in the Midwest threatening our food supplies and farm incomes.
State and Federal leadership is needed now more than ever to solve the climate crisis and protect our most vulnerable communities. We welcome President-Elect Biden’s commitment to restore national leadership on climate action by rejoining the Paris Agreement on the first day of his Administration and making climate change a bedrock priority. We look forward to working with his Administration on bold action to fight carbon pollution, protect our citizens and rebuild our nation’s clean and resilient economy.
Our states will continue to act on climate change, doing so with increased urgency and ambition, in line with science. We will embrace the significant economic opportunities presented by our climate leadership, focusing on an equitable and just transition while investing in community- and family-sustaining clean energy jobs. And we will continue to cooperate through the U.S. Climate Alliance — a bipartisan coalition of 25 governors — because together we move further and faster.”
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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