🔗 Share this article

At stuffy UN media briefings, in luxurious auditoriums and at crowded socialist dance parties, one term was on everyone’s lips at this year’s Climate Week NYC: cost-effectiveness.

The American energy chief, Chris Wright, said that under President Trump the United States is “returning to practical energy policies that concentrate on affordability”. The previous energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, said Democrats must focus on renewable power’s capacity to shrink power bills to win elections. And advocates of the almost certainly soon-to-be New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, promoted their efforts to connect green policies with actions to lower city residents’ rent and make transit cost-effective.

The effort to tie daily cost issues to climate change is not new. The idea was a central part of the progressive climate plan, a forward-thinking policy platform championed by youth-led climate group the Sunrise Movement and New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. Joe Biden adopted the approach in the White House, calling his signature green carbon-cutting policy the Inflation Reduction Act, from 2022.

Now, as energy costs soar around the country, Americans on every part of the ideological divide are presenting their energy and climate proposals as ways to safeguard everyday citizens’ finances.

Key Reads

• Uncovered: The EU losing 600 football pitches of wildlife and farmland a day
• UK fracking ban to be accelerated as Labour counters Reform promise
• Israel’s environmental destruction in Gaza sends this signal: even if we stopped dropping bombs, you couldn’t live here

In Focus

Every year, Climate Week in New York City brings together public leaders, corporate actors, experts and activists for a wide range of environment-centered events, timed to align with the United Nations general assembly.

This year, the Trump administration’s anti-environmental blitz threw a massive shadow over the event. In speeches through the week, White House officials aimed to peg its deregulatory agenda as a victory to lower Americans’ bills, with Trump calling green energy a “fraud” and Wright saying: “The more people have gotten into supposed climate action, the more expensive their energy has become.”

Environmental supporters attempted to reveal those statements as inaccurate while persuading Americans to support with green policies on the grounds that they can lower costs. For instance, two Democratic representatives, from Illinois and California, introduced a proposal to speed new power-line construction and restore green energy incentives which Trump repealed earlier this year. Its name: the Cheap Energy Act.

It’s a strategy that Jennifer Granholm, who served as US energy secretary under Biden, said she expected as climate slips down the list of political concerns for Americans, while economic worries rise. “My guess is you’re not going to see a lot of politicians using the word ‘climate’, because people see that as a nice-to-have [concern], not a must-have, and right now they’re in the must-have mode,” she told reporters during avocado toast one morning. “Affordability is crucial.”

Those well to Granholm’s progressive side also advocated a emphasis on affordability in the climate fight. But many called for more ambitious solutions that provide more quick benefits. Instead of merely tinkering with the tax code to incentivize green technology buildout – a signature of Biden’s climate efforts – politicians should focus on less technical, “green economic populist” campaigns such as no-cost transit and the build-out of decarbonized public housing.

“These kinds of programs do have decarbonization benefits, but they’re extremely important for starting to build up a mass base [who have] trust in public institutions and confidence in the government,” Batul Hassan, workforce lead at the left-leaning thinktank Climate and Community Institute, said at a panel.

Mamdani, the left-wing who achieved a stunning win in the New York City mayoral primary this summer, represents this kind of platform, said Hassan. On Wednesday of Climate Week, activists assembled for a dance party at the legendary Sounds of Brazil music venue to celebrate the candidate’s success.

“It has long been understood that if we’re going to build a broad coalition, people need to see the connection between the shift to renewable energy and spending less money,” New York City comptroller Brad Lander said in an interview at the party, shouting over the beat of Charli xcx.

Messaging is critical, but merely speaking about affordability is not enough, Alexa Avilés, a New York City council member and democratic socialist, told the Guardian at the Mamdani event. Trump, for instance, has not delivered to deliver on his promise of reducing bills as handing massive benefits to oil giants and other corporations. And many Democrats are also guilty of favoring their business backers’ interests, Avilés said.

“Some people speak about everyday folks, but then they make policies that are designed for the rich. We’ve been living with that disappointment for a long time,” she said. “We need to focus on actually bringing relief to people. And we see that when we genuinely center people over profit, people react to that. People can discern who is sincere.”

Further Reading:

• US energy department cracks down on workers’ use of environmental emergency language
• Trump administration allocating $625m to resurrect declining coal industry
• Los Angeles pledged to host the Olympics without straining the bank and environment. Can it?