Not Waiting for Washington: Climate Policy Adoption in California and New York

THE UNITED STATES’ FEDERAL CLIMATE change mitigation policies are widely seen as weak and ineffective, especially in cross-national comparison.1 Before the Barack Obama administration, these policies were limited mainly to voluntary measures and were not guided by overall emissions reduction targets. Partly as a result, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased 10.4 percent from 1990 to 2010.2 In the absence of strong national action, many state governments adopted climate policies beginning in the early 2000s. The main policies include greenhouse gas emissions targets and climate action plans; support for energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy development; energy efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions standards for vehicles, appliances, buildings, and power plants; and mandatory cap-and-trade systems for greenhouse gases.3 The governments of about a dozen states, clustered in the Northeast and on the West Coast, have adopted relatively strong climate policies. That is, they have ambitious goals, have pursued a very wide range of policies, started policymaking earlier than other states, and have made reasonable progress in implementation.4