Some U.S. states are building momentum for a green energy transition without convincing conservatives that climate change is happening, focusing on issues like health and nature conservation that unite people across partisan lines.
Michigan Republicans are working out how to “massively” increase the state’s renewable energy mandate and reduce coal production, Climate Progress reports, while Nevada’s Republican Governor Brian Sandoval recently moved to phase out 800 MW of coal capacity, support 350 MW of new renewable energy production, and attract Tesla Motors’ first gigabattery factory to his state.
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“As the partisan reshuffling of the country’s voters collides with the public’s overall support for climate action and clean energy, the number of Snyders and Sandovals will probably only grow in the near future,” Spross writes. “As such, they provide a quixotic but very real opening—assuming climate hawks can overlook the refusal to say whom science blames for causing climate change.”
