Finding hope after the lost decade on climate change

This New Year’s will bring to a close not just another lost year, but a lost decade on climate change at the federal level.

At the beginning of the decade, the Obama administration used its executive powers to combat climate change — crafting the Clean Power Plan, strengthening automobile efficiency standards, and signing the Paris Agreement on climate. But coal and fossil fuel companies, mining states, some utilities and car companies, and the Trump administration spent the rest of the decade attacking, delaying, and dismantling these efforts.

All the while the country flooded, melted, and burned.

In contrast, leading states, cities, companies and institutions (like universities and faith-based organizations), spent the past decade reducing greenhouse gas emissions through mandates, investment, and experiments.

Mandates — clear and measurable expressions of where you want to go — provide clarity to organizations, certainty to plan investment, and pressure to work on getting there. States and cities across the country set stringent economy-wide greenhouse gas reduction targets. Connecticut’s 2030 target is ambitious: 45% below 2001 levels. To achieve those reductions, local actors set aggressive goals for renewables and zero carbon resources. Electricity coming out of every socket in Connecticut will be 20% renewable in 2020, 40% renewable by 2030, and over 80% clean by 2030 when you count nuclear and hydropower. Connecticut also joined 10 other states to demand that manufacturers sell more zero-emission vehicles. These mandates mean that local actors across the country are now actively in the business of de-carbonizing our economy and society.

To reduce its carbon footprint, Connecticut bought grid-scale clean energy from solar arrays, wind farms, and nuclear power plants — using competition to keep costs down. Cities, companies, and institutions installed solar on their rooftops or contracted with others to build grid-scale renewables. Northeastern states led the nation in making our homes, businesses, and schools more efficient. Local actors bought electric buses for transit systems and electric vehicles for fleets, and installed charging stations to reduce range anxiety. States paid for some of that investment using proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the first market-based program in the United States that put a price on carbon emissions from power plants. These efforts yielded multiple returns in cost savings, jobs created, and healthier communities.

Local actors took risks and experimented with new programs. In 2011, Connecticut launched the first-in-the-nation Green Bank, which sparked $1.6 billion in new clean energy projects over the decade, leveraging about $7 of private capital for every public dollar. But the Green Bank also tackled clean energy equity: its “Solar for All” program supported over 125 megawatts of solar power in low- and moderate-income communities. Municipal leaders launched Sustainable CT, a voluntary certification program to recognize best practices and fund sustainable actions. Hartford launched a Climate Stewardship Council and a climate action plan. Yale launched an internal carbon charge to test the effectiveness of carbon pricing. Utility companies launched new business models for a clean, distributed, electrified, information-driven energy world. Experiments like these are possible because local actors actually know their constituents and customers, who according to a recent survey increasingly think global warming is happening (70%), are worried about it (67%), and have personally experienced its effects (46%).

To be sure, Connecticut, Hartford, or Yale will not solve the global climate crisis by itself. But the coalition of local actors across the United States who are committed to climate action represent nearly 70% of GDP, 65% of the population, and 50% of emissions. These local actors have succeeded in unlocking private capital, creating new clean energy jobs, and positively channeling people’s passion for climate action. They have done so with a suite of complementary policy tools — not one silver bullet. They also acted in a collaborative and bipartisan manner, in stark contrast to the poisonous partisanship in Washington.

Global emissions are still on the rise, and our ability to limit warming well below 2 degrees Celsius is slipping out of reach. Our country’s only hope to lead on climate in the next decade is by following the examples set by leading states, cities, companies and institutions over the past decade. We’ve run the experiments and know what works. Now is the time to replicate and scale up the innovative actions of these local actors, before it’s too late. As we start a new decade, let’s resolve to make federal leadership match the ambition and creativity of local actors.

Dr. Robert J. Klee teaches energy and environmental law and policy at Yale. He served as Commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection from 2014 to 2019. He is the recent author of an essay series entitled “Searching for a New Deal on Climate? Look to the States,” in the Yale Center for Business and the Environment’s Clean Energy Finance Forum.