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Building winning climate coalitions: Evidence from U.S. states

Liberal-leaning U.S. states have been at the forefront of climate policy action, despite continued political power of fossil fuel interests. We argue that two shifts have fundamentally changed the interest group politics of decarbonization in the U.S., and enabled more ambitious state-level climate policy. First, the pro-climate organizational landscape has broadened due to clean energy deployment, greater philanthropic support, the emergence of mass mobilization, and rise of environmental justice groups. Second, falling clean energy costs enhance opportunities to fracture fossil fuel coalitions, as some carbon-intensive interests make investments towards a low-carbon future.

We argue that these developments highlight the importance of building and maintaining broad pro-climate coalitions, and fracturing fossil fuel opposition through policy designs that garner support from carbon-intensive interests with decarbonization options. We leverage stakeholder interviews to study climate policymaking in Colorado, Illinois, and New York in the aftermath of Democrats taking unified control of these state governments in 2018. Generally, policy enactment also depended on the formation of broad pro-climate coalitions that included both professionalized and grassroots environmental groups. In addition, designing bills that brought industrial labor unions and electric utilities to positions of support or neutrality was critical to reducing the ability of fossil fuel coalitions to block new policies.

Overall, our analysis indicates the emergence of greater opportunities to pass ambitious decarbonization policies, as the interest group politics of climate move from fossil fuel dominance to a more contested landscape.

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About the authors

Samuel Trachtman

Senior Researcher, Political Economy of California

Sam Trachtman is a senior researcher at BESI, where he leads the research program on the political economy of California. Previously, he worked at the Goldman School of Public Policy’s Possibility Lab. He led the lab’s Abundance Accelerator, an applied research program aiming to increase California’s capacity to sustainably produce the goods, services, and resources that we all need to live well. 

Sam completed his Ph.D. in political science in 2021 at UC Berkeley, where he honed skills in quantitative methods and policy-engaged empirical research. He has published widely in academic journals including American Political Science Review, Climatic Change, Governance, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Nature Energy, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Perspectives on Politics. Prior to his academic career, Sam gained experience in the private sector as an analyst for a large electric utility and in the public sector as a healthcare analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.

Away from the office, you can find Sam exploring the beautiful Bay Area and surrounding landscape, usually by bike or foot. He also plays banjo and keyboard in an amateur Americana band.

Irem Inal

Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology

Jonas Meckling

Research Lead, Climate

Jonas Meckling is a professor of energy and environmental policy at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, he leads the Energy and Environment Policy Lab and the Climate research program of the Berkeley Economy & Society Initiative.

Meckling studies the politics of climate policy and the energy transition, with a focus on the intersection of climate and economic policy. He is the author of two books and publishes his research in leading journals, including Nature and Science. He has received multiple awards for his research from the American Political Science Association.

Previously, he was visiting professor at Harvard Business School and Yale University, served as senior advisor to the German Minister for the Environment and Renewable Energy, was a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and worked at the European Commission. He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

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