Fighting Climate Change Is Just Good Business
A lack of federal action in the clean-energy fight is prompting states to take matters into their own hands, and corporations are doing the same.
Dim prospects.
Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Last week, the New York State Assembly passed the most aggressive clean-energy target in the United States, requiring New York to get 100 percent of its electricity from zero-emissions sources by 2040. Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is expected to sign the bill into law, called it “the most aggressive in the country.” On the other side of the country, Oregon’s state Legislature is attempting to pass another ambitious climate bill, an effort now stalled by the fact that Republican senators have walked off the job. In the absence of federal action on decarbonizing the power sector, states are taking action on their own.
These state goals are ambitious, and they’re potentially unachievable using current technologies. But they are becoming policy reality, not political rhetoric. Businesses and investors thinking of what assets to build and finance, and where, are signaling that they are aligning themselves with these ambitious climate goals.