It’s no secret that this year’s election results don’t bode well for the climate, as Donald Trump has promised to gut federal regulations and roll back recent progress at the national level. But there was a glimmer of hope in state and local elections, particularly out West.
In Washington State, a Robin Hood-style climate law—which extracts money from polluters and redistributes it to the people and places most harmed by climate change—is proving popular. Voters enthusiastically upheld the law last week, despite the fact that it effectively adds a surcharge to gas—even when the state’s gas prices are some of the highest in the nation.
This result affirmed a truth that should serve as a playbook during the coming Trump years and beyond: Aggressive climate action can tangibly improve people’s lives right away.
During the tumult of 2020, Washington Governor Jay Inslee rebranded his effort to pass a cap-and-trade limit on carbon emissions. (Until then, California was the only state with such a program.) The governor’s team called it a “cap and invest” program—and decided to channel all the proceeds of the law back into public works projects. “We focused on the easiest thing for people to wrap their minds and hearts around,” Inslee told Grist.
The strategy worked, and in 2021, Inslee signed the Climate Commitment Act, which placed a limit on the state’s carbon pollution and hardwired a path to net zero emissions by 2050. The overall idea is simple to understand but still complex in its execution: Polluters must pay the state for permits to release damaging greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and all that money is then spent on projects to support a zero-carbon economy and prioritize environmental justice. It’s up to the state legislature to decide exactly how the money is spent.
But as inflation gathered steam over the last few years, a conservative hedge fund investor named Brian Heywood grew disgruntled with the law and launched a ballot campaign to overturn it. Instead, the failed repeal effort gave the governor and his allies a chance to further showcase the positive impact the bill is already having.
In 2023, the first year the law was fully in effect, the state of Washington repurposed $2.2 billion from its heaviest polluters toward investments in public health and its energy transition—10 times as much per capita as California’s similar climate law. In the weeks before the election, Inslee toured the state to highlight the hundreds of millions of dollars that had already been spent on public works projects—everything from free public transit to storm-proofing tribal infrastructure to money-saving heat pumps.
In a statement after the election, Inslee called the referendum’s rejection “an unequivocal message” in support of bold climate action.
The fact that voters in Washington state soundly defeated (62% to 38%) a ballot question affirming one of the most progressive climate laws in the country, during an election that many pundits said was a referendum on inflation, bodes well for continued progress on state and local climate action during Donald Trump’s second presidential term.
“Governors have a decades-long track record of advancing innovative, effective climate solutions and we won’t be deterred by the result of this or any other election,” said New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham in a statement on behalf of U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan pro-climate group of state governors she co-chairs.
States that are vying to be the next climate success story during Trump’s second term have fresh tailwinds besides the Washington ballot results: Newly built wind and solar is now cheaper than fossil fuels across North America. Plummeting costs for batteries make it even more promising for renewable energy to out-compete coal and natural gas.
Efforts are already ramping up in purple states of Wisconsin and North Carolina to strengthen climate efforts during Trump’s second term after Democrats successfully broke super majorities in state legislatures there. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has seen some success in abandoning mentions of climate change and instead focusing on promoting renewable energy’s ability to make the state’s economy stronger—and will now be able to veto Republican efforts to stop him. In North Carolina, Governor-elect Josh Stein will get to work triaging more than a decade of deregulation and codified climate denial that has left the state more vulnerable to climate disaster.
Some of the most promising efforts are happening right now in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vermont, and Colorado—all of which have been modeling their plans on Washington’s successful program, with some tweaks. The “cap and invest” branding looks like it’s here to stay in all of them—maybe it’s just the right mix of carrot and stick that resonates with voters.