(The Center Square) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is leading a group pledging to stick with a global climate pact following President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris environmental agreement.
Trump, sworn into office on Monday, signed an executive order directing the United States to withdraw again from the landmark Paris Agreement, fulfilling a campaign pledge to pull out of the climate pact.
“America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it,” Trump said in his inauguration speech on Monday. “We will drill, baby, drill.”
However, in a letter to the United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, Hochul said the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance — which includes two dozen governors representing nearly 55% of the U.S. population — are committed to reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions and implementing the requirements of the Paris Agreement.
“Our states and territories continue to have broad authority under the U.S. Constitution to protect our progress and advance the climate solutions we need,” Hochul wrote in the letter, which was also signed by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who co-chairs the climate alliance. “This does not change with a shift in federal administration.”
Hochul, a Democrat, said members of the bipartisan coalition— including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont — are implementing a range of policies and programs “to secure our net-zero future, including statewide and regional carbon markets, 100% clean energy standards, and methane reduction programs for the oil and gas, waste, and agricultural sectors, among many others.”
“We are also deploying billions of dollars to eliminate pollution in our communities and sustain our country’s clean energy boom,” Hochul wrote in the letter.
The Paris Agreement binds 196 signatory nations to a goal of keeping global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit compared to pre-industrial times, or alternatively, keeping temperatures at least well below 3.6 degrees F. above the pre-industrial level. The only countries that haven’t signed the pact are Iran, Libya and Yemen.
Trump pulled out of the climate pact in 2017 during his first presidency, a move that took nearly four years to implement and was later reversed by Democrat Joe Biden’s administration. The latest withdrawal will take effect in a year.
The Trump administration argues that the agreement will cost the U.S. billions of dollars, citing pledges by developed economies to give developing economies $100 billion in grants to assist their transition to renewable energy.
But Hochul said the climate pact is helping the U.S. reduce its carbon output, citing data showing between 2005 and 2022, member states reduced net greenhouse gas emissions by 19% while increasing collective gross domestic product by 30%, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal by reducing collective GHG emissions 26% below 2005 levels by 2025.
Members of the alliance are also hiring more workers in the clean energy sector, “achieving lower levels of dangerous air pollutants, and preparing more effectively for climate impacts than the rest of the country,” she said.
“Most importantly, this action is bringing better health, cleaner air, good-paying jobs, new economic development, and lower costs to our communities,” she wrote.
