For hope on climate change, look to the 'other Washington'

In a sign of just how bad President-elect Donald Trump's second term is likely to be on the issue of climate change, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil spoke out this week, urging him not to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emissions and to pursue "common sense" solutions.

When the head of the ninth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the United States says the incoming president should maybe dial it down a bit, you know we're not in for a productive four years on the issue of climate change.

But we knew that already. Trump argues that climate change is either a "hoax" or just "weather" and calls efforts to fight it a "scam," baselessly claims that windmills cause cancer, invents weird hypotheticals about electric-powered boats, suggests a rising sea level might even be good for real estate values, and has announced a conservative with little environmental record as his pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. He rolled back more than 100 environmental rules in his first term; his second term will be no different.

But if Washington, D.C., is not going to help address the warming climate, concerned Americans might look instead to what the tourism campaigns used to call "the other Washington."

On the same night that Trump won a second term, voters in Washington state rejected an effort led by a hedge fund manager to repeal a bold program to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. At the same time, they elected a Democratic governor who has pledged to continue implementing the law over a Republican who had promised to repeal it.

This is significant for several reasons.

First and foremost, the Climate Commitment Act is one of the most serious efforts at the state level to realistically reduce greenhouse gases. It works by requiring polluters to pay for permits to release greenhouse gases which they can resell to other companies if they aren't used, creating a financial incentive to reduce their emissions. This idea, called carbon pricing, was found to be the most effective of any climate change proposal in a study of more than 1,500 policies in 41 countries.

But carbon pricing is also hard to pull off because it can raise prices, which, we've been reminded recently, is generally not popular. A similar cap-and-trade proposal died in the Senate during President Barack Obama's first term, while Australia repealed its carbon tax in 2014 after years of political debate that make the fight over Obamacare look tame.

The Washington law seeks to avoid that problem by spending the money raised by the greenhouse gas permits on things that voters like, a strategy called "cap and invest." The $3 billion allocated by state officials so far has gone toward things such as rebates on electric bills, electric vehicle charging stations and community solar projects which provide tangible benefits to communities, reduce energy costs and help Washingtonians move away from fossil fuels.

That gave the law's defenders strong arguments about local projects that would be lost when defending it from repeal. In fact, the repeal measure was defeated by 62% of voters. That means more voters supported keeping the climate law in place than voted for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris or the successful Democratic candidates for governor and senator in the overwhelmingly blue state.

To be fair, Washington is only one state and generally ranks toward the middle of the pack on state greenhouse gas emissions, so it's not a national fix.

But the success of its climate law is a model for other states to follow in the next four years, which could make it more important. California and 11 states in the Northeast already have some form of carbon pricing in place, while New York is preparing to launch a similar program as Washington's in 2025. These state programs can help keep momentum on addressing climate change even during the second Trump administration.

They may also be the foundation of an even larger effort. Now that the Washington law has been upheld, the state is free to move ahead with plans to link its carbon pollution markets with ones in California and Quebec, Canada, potentially creating an international market that would be more sustainable in the long run.

Even after the Trump administration ends, Congress may not get around to passing a meaningful price on carbon any time soon, given the difficulty in getting a bill passed even in a good year. But if enough states take action — either on their own or in concert with one another — the United States can still make meaningful progress on climate change anyway.

For that, you can thank the other Washington.