State & Regional Climate Change Policy

Why Do States Matter?

States play a key role by serving as ‘learning laboratories’ for future federal policy, testing potential models for national program design. Success at the regional level demonstrates and expands political and economic feasibility for a strong federal climate change policy.

To date, more than a dozen states, including California, Hawaii, Illinois, and New Jersey, have each established mandatory, long-term GHG emission reduction goals, and several others are considering similar action. Many more states have also adopted policies or programs to address climate change, including automobile GHG emissions tailpipe requirements, renewable electricity standards, or emission reporting obligations.

At the regional level, ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have launched the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from electric power plants. Similar regional efforts are taking place involving US States and Canadian provinces on the West Coast (i.e., the Western Climate Initiative) and Midwest (Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord). Altogether these efforts account for twenty-three U.S. states and four Canadian provinces. Participating U.S. states account for one-half of the U.S. population, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and one-third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The Canadian provinces account for more than three-quarters of the Canadian population and GDP, and nearly one-half of Canadian GHG emissions.

It is not yet clear what role states will have in a federal program. However, federal and state governments have historically shared responsibility for tackling tough environmental problems like climate change, and this dynamic has helped to spur considerable policy innovation.

Furthermore, should no national program be enacted, regional programs can deliver needed GHG reductions.

What Is WRI Doing?

WRI is currently engaged in the Western and Midwestern processes in facilitative, advisory, and technical support capacities. We are working with state leaders to examine the role of states in a federal climate program. WRI is also facilitating discussions between state officials and federal policymakers so that lessons from regional efforts can support, inform, and influence the creation of federal policy.

In October and February, working with the Nicholas Institute at Duke University, we brought together state leaders from 19 diverse states to define the appropriate role of states under a federal climate change policy. The dialogue provided a forum for the participants to share ideas regarding the appropriate roles for the states under a federal climate policy, to consider areas where they may agree and disagree, and identify issues that require further research and analysis. We are in the process of distilling these discussions into a paper. In the meantime, work that was done on the narrow issue of accounting for state emissions reductions has been released as a working paper that can be found here (PDF).

In April we convened leading scientists, experts, and policymakers from key state, provincial and federal agencies in the U.S. and Canada in Washington, DC to examine the issues and policy options for including agriculture and forestry projects in a climate program.

In June we hosted the first ever meeting of the 3 regional trading programs (i.e., RGGI, WCI, and the Midwestern Accord).