America Pledge

America’s Pledge, an initiative of former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and California Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., works to analyze, catalyze, and showcase how climate action led by states, cities, and businesses is driving the United States together toward a low-carbon future. Rocky Mountain Institute has served as co-lead of the America’s Pledge research program.

WHAT IS THE AMERICA’S PLEDGE INITIATIVE?

In July 2017, former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and California Governor Jerry Brown launched the America’s Pledge initiative to aggregate and quantify the actions of states, cities and businesses, and other non-national actors in the United States to drive down their greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

In November 2017, America’s Pledge published a robust survey of US climate action led by US governors, mayors, business leaders, and others. This Phase 1 report estimated that real economy actors representing more than half the US economy—whose economic activity is equivalent to that of the third-largest country in the world—were actively engaged in fulfilling the Paris Agreement. The report, launched by Bloomberg and Brown at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn, played a key role in providing confidence to the international community about ongoing US decarbonization efforts.

In September 2018, America's Pledge unveiled the most comprehensive assessment to date of how US states, cities, and businesses are implementing climate targets and delivering emissions reductions within their own jurisdictions and operations—and how they have the power to can go even farther and drive the United States faster toward a low-carbon future.

In December 2019, America’s Pledge released a report laying out a comprehensive climate strategy with pathways for making significant progress on US emissions reductions and advancing the country toward the goals of the Paris Agreement by 2030. The report details how progress toward a prosperous, low-carbon future can berealized by building on the foundations of existing climate leadership from US states, cities, businesses, and other non-federal entities representing nearly 70% of the country’s GDP—and accelerated further still through successful federal re-engagement on climate policies and actions.

Aerial view of a solar power station

WHY IT MATTERS

The Paris Agreement was the culmination of nearly 30 years of efforts to devise a durable strategy for ratcheting down global greenhouse gas emissions at a pace that would avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change. Like other countries, the United States made a pledge to reduce its emissions, with a specific target of 26–28 percent by 2025. Implementing the vision of the Paris Agreement calls for broad, rapid, and significant engagement across all parts of society in order to reap the benefits of a low-carbon, climate-resilient future fueled by clean jobs and economic growth.

America’s Pledge is showcasing that in the US, states, cities, businesses, and others are embracing this future—helping drive better outcomes for their own citizens and business operations—despite a step back in leadership and commitment by the US federal government.