The Metro: Jay Inslee on where the climate movement should go next

What should we make of the climate movement’s accomplishments over the last decade?

On one side, the Inflation Reduction Act and Chips and Science Act helped distribute clean energy across the country. Those policies dropped solar prices — 90% over the last decade. Battery storage costs fell by the same amount from 2010 to 2020. 

But the Green New Deal never passed, and many Republicans in Michigan and across the U.S. are against a clean energy transition. President Donald Trump has consistently said climate change isn’t real and the world continues to warm at a rapid clip. 

Jay Inslee has been at the center of the climate movement. He was governor of Washington for three terms, and a presidential candidate in 2020 when he pushed Democrats to take climate change more seriously. 

What does he make of our climate politics today? And where should the climate movement go next?

The Metro’s Sam Corey recently spoke with Inslee when he was in town stumping for Jocelyn Benson in her bid for governor.

The Metro has reached out multiple times to the campaign for Republican John James for governor. They have not yet given us a time when the candidate is available to join us.

A few notes about this conversation:

Inslee mentioned a Washington ballot measure on climate that won 62 percent of the vote. That was a 2024 vote on whether to scrap the state’s climate program — the one that makes big polluters pay for what they emit. Voters chose to keep it.

He also cited a Washington vote on electric school buses. That wasn’t a ballot measure — it was a bill, passed by the Legislature in 2024.

He said President Trump’s White House construction and renovation projects will cost $800 million. According to Reuters, those projects are now more than $900 million.

Inslee said that 80% of rural voters supported a clean energy ballot initiative in Washington. We could not verify that.