In my previous two civic issue blogs, I covered the reasons for the United State’s deep divide on climate policy and which countries have taken the biggest strides to combat climate change. This week I’ll be focusing solely on the US and how they are making changes, both on the governmental and state levels.   

On June 1, 2017, Donald Trump announced that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. Though most of you probably already have a pretty strong understanding of what the agreement entails, I will give a quick overview. “The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change;” currently, 196 nations are signatories. “Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” and exponentially cut back on the levels of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere; the goal is carbon neutrality. Every five years each nation has to submit a plan of action on how they will cut back on their emissions. The agreement is not overly complicated, but there is clearly a lot riding on its success. So, back to my original point: when Donald Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017, not even twenty-four hours later, the governors of California, New York, and Washington, Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, and Jay Inslee, respectively, launched the United States Climate Alliance. The Alliance is “a bipartisan coalition of governors (and subsequently states) committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement,” comprised of twenty-five members: twenty-four states and Puerto Rico. Members of the Alliance actually make up fifty-five percent of the US population and are releasing about forty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions, which is why having statewide standards can play such a large role in the overall efficacy of nationwide climate initiatives. Since its creation in 2017, the Alliance has already taken multiple actions against climate change, with states passing their own legislation across a few different sectors. California set a goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2045, as well as requiring all newly sold cars and passenger trucks to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035. “Hawaii’s legislature also passed a bill that provides rebates to people who install a new electric vehicle charging system or upgrade any existing systems.” There have also been regulations proposed in a few different states, namely Virginia, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Washington, and Vermont, in an attempt to attack different pollutants which aren’t always at the forefront of the climate debate: black carbon, methane and hydrofluorocarbons. Black carbon is one of the main components in soot, and one of the reasons it is such a threat to global warming is because of its high absorption of solar energy. “When suspended in the atmosphere, black carbon… [converts]… incoming solar radiation to heat. It also influences cloud formation and impacts regional circulation and rainfall patterns.”   

Even though President Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement on his first day in office, the US Climate Alliance is still in effect and its successes have not gone unnoticed. According to the Alliance’s annual report, state members are not only reducing their emissions but also growing their economies at a faster pace than non-Alliance states, which is a clear indication that climate policy, activism, and leadership are directly related to economic growth. As members of the Climate Alliance, each state has another responsibility that is going to help the country in the long run because while the country is being held to a standard within the Paris Agreement, each individual state must hold up its end of the bargain also.

Renewable energy has started to become an important part of the United States climate initiative (there is obviously still a strong dependence on coal and other fossil fuels, but a movement in the right direction is still visible). States in the alliance are at the forefront of the push for green energy. Nevada recently passed legislation, which will increase the amount of electricity that comes from renewable sources to fifty percent by 2030 (currently it’s about twenty-eight percent). And by 2050, Minnesota proposed to have one hundred percent clean energy to power the electricity sector (currently it’s twenty-five percent). Renewable energy has become the United States’ fastest-growing energy source over the last twenty years, the percentage of national usage and dependency has increased over one hundred percent since 2000. Hydropower (usually from dams), wind (wind farms can be built both onshore and offshore; offshore wind farms are the ideal location because of land and a constant energy source), solar, biomass (materials from once-living organisms, burned for fuel), and geothermal (thermal energy stored in the ground) make up the majority of energy generation. The percentage of energy generated from renewables is only going to continue to rise. In 2017, seventeen percent of our electricity was generated from renewable sources; hydropower (around 7 percent) and wind power (around 6.6 percent) were and continue to be the biggest contributors for electricity. Though by 2050, solar energy is predicted to generate almost forty-eight percent of the total renewable energy in the US, making it the fastest growing renewable source. I probably don’t need to convince many people about the benefits of renewable energy sources. In the short run, switching to these different energy forms can obviously be a bit costly: the plants and storage facilities need to be built and operated. But this is also going to generate jobs to improve and boost the economy and the obvious: reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. In the long run, using renewable energy sources is going to save money and diminish dependence on international energy sources like oil. The United States still has a long way to go with climate policy, as do most countries, so we are not alone, but it is important that steps are being taken in the right direction.