As the international community at the global climate conference reckons with Donald Trump’s coming presidency, American Democratic state and local leaders are pitching themselves as the chief negotiators for the United States on climate.
Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement during his first term and has pledged to do so again. This time, he should be able to do it much faster. He has promised to immediately gut much of the climate regulations put in place by the Biden administration and further up oil and gas production.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and his climate adviser, Becky Kelley, are in Baku, Azerbaijan, this week for the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference to assure the international stage that progress on climate doesn’t just have to come at the national level.