My fellow Washingtonians, I come to you today with urgent news. This week we learned that global carbon dioxide levels are now at their highest levels in 4 million years. Climate change is not only manmade through carbon emissions, but its decimation is revving up faster than many expected.
These heat-trapping emissions are changing our lives and world for the worse. The conditions of the world we live in were handed down through the eons, but it took human industry just a few generations to cause damage that could be irreparable.
We can save our climate – and with it, our way of life – but time is running out. In Washington state, we just passed the most ambitious and far-reaching climate policies in the nation. We’re requiring transportation fuel producers to offer cleaner choices to consumers; we now have the strongest environmental justice laws in the country to help communities most burdened by air pollution and climate change; and we have a cap and invest system that will require polluters to draw down emissions every year until we are at net zero. Together with our requirement for 100% clean electricity and many other policies, Washington’s path to climate solutions will deliver good-paying jobs, cleaner air, and a safe future for our children and grandchildren.
We need the rest of our nation and the world to get on the same page as this blueprint, and so much more. I encourage everyone to go to our website – governor.wa.gov – and join us in this fight for our children’s future.