Thirty states and scores of companies said Thursday that they would press ahead with their climate policies and pursue lower greenhouse-gas emissions, breaking sharply with President Donald Trump's decision to exit the historic Paris climate accord.
In a pointed rebuttal to Trump's announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) unveiled a plan to invest $1.65 billion in renewable energy and energy efficiency on Thursday, the largest procurement of renewable energy by a state.
Meanwhile, more than two dozen big companies, including Apple, Morgan Stanley and Royal Dutch Shell, urged Trump not to exit the Paris agreement.
[Trump to pull U.S. from historic Paris climate agreement]
Trump framed his renunciation of the Paris accord as a historic moment in defense of American workers and the economy. But the actions in state capitals and corporate board rooms provided a counterpoint to Trump's argument.
Across the nation and the economy, renewable-energy technologies have taken root and gathered momentum while creating thousands of jobs, state and corporate officials said. And the pressure on executives to address climate change has grown as major financial advisory firms for the first time used their shares to press their views on the issue.
Trump's decision to exit the landmark agreement will damage the United States' international standing on climate issues, officials said.
Hours after Trump's announcement, Robert Iger, chief executive of Walt Disney Co., tweeted that he had resigned from the president's advisory council "as a matter of principle" over the withdrawal from the Paris accord.
Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, tweeted that Trump's decision "is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.'s leadership position in the world."
Meanwhile, Cuomo unveiled his plan for $1.5 billion in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. In an interview, his aides said he would spend an additional $150 million to give solar energy a boost on the rooftops of schools and other public buildings.
While Trump has cited his concern about coal jobs in withdrawing from the agreement, Cuomo said his latest energy initiative combined with earlier measures would create 40,000 jobs by 2020 – nearly twice the current number of mining and logging jobs in West Virginia, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Cuomo, who has made renewable energy a priority since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, expects the state's solar capacity to more than double, to about 1,600 megawatts, by the end of 2018.
He said he would provide new incentives for the installation of 125 megawatts of solar on the rooftops of schools and other government buildings. The governor added that the state has established a partnership with a consortium of banks to finance energy and solar projects.
"As the federal government abdicates its responsibility to address climate change – at the expense of our environment and economy – New York is leading the nation in advancing a clean energy future," Cuomo said in a statement. He said that with the package of measures, "New York continues to tackle the challenges of climate change and create the high-quality, good-paying careers of tomorrow."
Cuomo isn't alone. About 30 states have adopted mandates for utilities to increase their use of renewable energy, standards that will not change with Trump's withdrawal from the Paris accord or his effort to nullify the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
In California, the state Senate voted to make utilities use 100 percent renewable energy by 2045 and 60 percent by 2030. The current standard in California and New York is for utilities to get 50 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2030.
Though the California Senate measure must still win approval of the state Assembly and Gov. Jerry Brown (D), it sent a signal. "It draws a huge contrast between Trump wanting to go backwards and states trying to take the lead in tackling the climate crisis," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director of Environment America.
"The California economy last year increased 40 percent faster than the rest of the country," Brown said on a conference call Thursday. "In fact, following policies even tougher than what Paris is calling for, the California economy is boosted. Trump is wrong when he says Paris is bad for jobs. It's good for jobs – the jobs of the future."
Cuomo, Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said they were forming a coalition of states determined to stick to the Paris targets. The three states account for a fifth of the U.S. economy.
[Exxon shareholder vote shows Wall Street diverging from Trump on climate change]
Many energy experts say that progress will continue on greenhouse-gas emissions even if the United States drops out of the Paris agreement.
"The net impact to our emissions performance is likely zero to negligible," said Andy Karsner, former principal climate negotiator for President George W. Bush. "I don't actually believe for a moment that a withdrawal from Paris is tantamount to abating our efforts, direction or momentum toward increased penetration of clean-energy technologies. Washington does not have the power to put the genie back in the bottle."
Karsner compared renewable- energy progress to the Pony Express. "When the Pony Express changed to airmail, then the Pony Express was done. Obsolete," he said. "When the Pony Express gives way to email, then the Pony Express is a distant memory, a romantic relic. That's what is happening in the world of energy technology. That has been our national aspiration for decades. . . . We have invested in this outcome for our well-being. And we're winning. We're ahead in the score.And we have a president who wants to quit the game."
Trump's announcement coincides with signs that climate concerns are growing stronger in the financial community. A resolution instructing corporate managements to do the climate equivalent of a financial stress test – describing in detail the effects of government policies designed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius – has been adopted at Occidental Petroleum, the utility PPL and ExxonMobil over the protests of management. Major financial advisory firms Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street bucked tradition and backed the resolutions.
On Thursday, 25 major companies took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times with a letter addressed to Trump. The companies – including Google, Intel, Microsoft, Schneider Electric, among others – urged Trump to stay in the Paris accord.
"As businesses concerned with the well-being of our customers, our investors, our communities and our suppliers, we are strengthening our climate resilience," the letter said, "and we are investing in innovative technologies that can help achieve a clean energy transition." But it said that government and U.S. leadership is essential, too.
Separately, Royal Dutch Shell said in a statement that it had shared with the Trump administration "our strong support for the U.S. remaining in the agreement." It added, "for our part, we will continue to take internal actions and convene important conversations that acknowledge our role in providing more and cleaner energy."