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 in 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by the U.S. federal government’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60 percent of the U.S. economy and 55 percent of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28 percent by 2025, 50-52 percent by 2030, and 61-66 percent 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 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 latest data shows that as of 2023, the Alliance has reduced its collective net greenhouse gas emissions by 24 percent below 2005 levels, while increasing collective GDP by 34 percent, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal of reducing collective greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
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