While President Donald Trump chose to withdraw the U.S. from the global Paris Agreement, a coalition of 17 U.S. governors committed to upholding the agreement recently announced a wave of initiatives to accelerate and scale up climate action. The U.S. Climate Alliance pledged to accelerate climate action in 2018 through the following actions:

• Reducing super pollutants: Includes releasing an action plan at the Global Climate Action Summit in September to drive down emissions by phasing down HFCs, capturing and putting waste methane to work, and addressing super emitters.
• Mobilizing financing for climate projects: Includes expanding sustainable infrastructure financing opportunities.
• Grid modernization: Includes plans to expand the adoption of innovative approaches to utility planning that can meet electricity demand while avoiding build-out of traditional electric transmission and distribution infrastructure.
• Renewable energy: Includes establishing a Solar Soft Costs Initiative to reduce the costs of solar projects.
• Appliance efficiency standards: Various states are collaborating to advance energy efficiency standards for consumer products and appliances to save energy costs and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
• Building resilient communities and infrastructure: In partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the National Council on Science and the Environment, the Alliance is working to build greater resiliency of its communities by fundamentally changing the way infrastructure is designed and procured.
• Increasing carbon storage in landscapes: Includes pursuing opportunities to increase carbon storage in forests, farms, and ecosystems and are launching a new initiative to identify best practices for land conservation, management, and restoration to develop a carbon storage policy framework for implementation.
• Deploying clean transportation: Includes collaborating on an initiative to accelerate deployment of zero-emissions vehicles, expand and improve mass transit and active transportation choices, and implement other measures for moving towards zero-emission vehicle miles traveled.

The U.S. Climate Alliance has made substantial progress toward the implementation of its commitment to uphold its share the Paris Agreement. Sixteen states and Puerto Rico continue to be on track to collectively meet their share of the U.S. climate target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

Governors from the U.S. Climate Alliance plan to attend the Global Climate Action Summit in September, when thousands of global leaders convene to strategize about accelerating and scaling up emissions reductions.