Bill McKibben on the new nation-states

Writing in The New Republic:

But the Paris decision may also reshape the world for the better, or at least the very different. Consider: A few days after Trump’s Rose Garden reveal, California Governor Jerry Brown was in China, conducting what looked a lot like an official state visit. He posed with pandas, attended banquets—and sat down for a one-on-one meeting with President Xi Jinping, which produced a series of agreements on climate cooperation between China and California. (Trump’s secretary of energy, Rick Perry, was in Beijing the same week: no pandas, no sit-down with Xi.) It was almost as if California were another country. Call it a nation-state—a nation-state that has talked about launching its own satellites to monitor melting polar ice. A nation-state that has joined New York and a dozen others in a climate alliance to announce they will meet the targets set in the Paris accord on their own. A nation-state that already holds joint auctions with Quebec in its carbon cap-and-trade program. A nation-state that is convening hundreds of other “subnational actors” from around the world next year to pledge to keep the rise in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius.

Subnationalism:

It’s ironic that global warming might be the wedge issue for the rise of “subnationalism.” After all, if you ever wanted an argument for world government, climate change provides it. But the United Nations has been trying to stop global warming since the days when we called it the greenhouse effect. And national governments, hijacked by the fossil fuel industry, have intervened again and again to obstruct any progress: The Kyoto treaty more or less collapsed, as did the Copenhagen talks. Paris “succeeded,” but only if you squint: The world’s nations vowed to keep the planet’s temperature increase to under 2 degrees Celsius, but their promises actually add up to a world that will grow 3.5 degrees hotter. The real hope was that the accord would spur private investment in renewable energy: And as the price of solar panels plummeted, in fact, China and India started to exceed their pledges.

Even that modest progress alarmed what energy expert Michael Klare calls the Big Three carbon powers: the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. (Trump’s foreign policy looks more coherent, by the way, when viewed through this prism.) The United States has now pulled out of Paris, and an aide to Vladimir Putin has said the withdrawal makes it “perfectly evident” the pact is now “unworkable.”

So what’s a state like California to do? It can’t ignore climate change, which threatens its very existence. [...]

If you want to know who is serious about forging a new path on global warming, ignore all the airy proclamations about meeting the Paris targets—and instead pay attention to the cities and states making the very real and measurable pledge to go 100 percent renewable. California’s senate just passed such a commitment by a 2–1 margin. More dramatically, the day after Trump said he had been elected to serve “Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Mayor Bill Peduto announced that Pittsburgh will run entirely on clean energy by 2035. “If you are a mayor and not preparing for the impacts of climate change,” Peduto said, “you aren’t doing your job.” All told, 27 cities in 17 states have pledged to go 100 percent renewable—a move that puts them at direct odds with federal policy. Call them “climate sanctuaries.” San Francisco, Boulder, and Burlington won’t surprise you—but Atlanta and Salt Lake City and San Diego have done the same.

If you want to know who is serious about forging a new path on global warming, ignore all the airy proclamations about meeting the Paris targets—and instead pay attention to the cities and states making the very real and measurable pledge to go 100 percent renewable. California’s senate just passed such a commitment by a 2–1 margin. More dramatically, the day after Trump said he had been elected to serve “Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Mayor Bill Peduto announced that Pittsburgh will run entirely on clean energy by 2035. “If you are a mayor and not preparing for the impacts of climate change,” Peduto said, “you aren’t doing your job.” All told, 27 cities in 17 states have pledged to go 100 percent renewable—a move that puts them at direct odds with federal policy. Call them “climate sanctuaries.” San Francisco, Boulder, and Burlington won’t surprise you—but Atlanta and Salt Lake City and San Diego have done the same.