Listen to the audio version >>

The Greentech revolution makes it possible to pivot rapidly away from fossil fuels. But realizing that possibility requires actually halting and reversing fossil fuel extraction and burning. President Trump is doing everything possible instead to expand such fossil folly – and to crush any efforts to restrain it. But the fight to reduce fossil fuels continues from below.

 

 

The previous commentaries have described how people in cities, states, and communities have been expanding fossil free energy production and reducing energy use through Greentech initiatives.

These are essential aspects of reducing climate-destroying greenhouse gas emissions, but in themselves they will not halt the destruction of the climate through the burning of fossil fuels. That requires halting new fossil fuel infrastructure and accelerating the closing of existing fossil fuel facilities. That is often referred to as a “phaseout” or “managed decline” of fossil fuels. It’s often summed up in the slogan, “Leave it in the ground!”

Greentech and fossil fuels can increase at the same time – indeed, they are doing so today. But the cheapening and improvement of Greentech can have a crucial impact on fossil fuel use. For every decision on future energy use, fossil fuels are worse and renewable energy is a better deal in almost every way (unless you are a fossil fuel company). But we must make the choice not only to create more fossil free energy, but to relentlessly reduce fossil fuel extraction and burning.

Many such actions are now being taken by local and state governments and grassroots activist groups to phase out fossil fuels. Although national and global action will be necessary to phase out fossil fuels completely, in their absence action from below is forming the tip of the climate protection spear.

However desirable a “big bang” shutdown of fossil fuel production and use might be, what is more likely is a persistent squeezing that reduces the value and profitability of fossil fuel investments. Each incremental squeeze on fossil fuel production and use tips the balance toward replacing them with Greentech. The remainder of this commentary will present just a few examples of how this is being done at the local and state level. (The next two commentaries describe another important set of examples — the movement against data centers.)

 

 

One day Ken Klovski, a resident of Lima township in rural Michigan, noticed boreholes on the farm across the road from his home. Klovski checked county records and discovered the farm had a three-year option agreement with the utility Consumers Energy. Then he found a filing with a map showing a proposed 1.4-gigawatt power plant near the farm. A town official called a public meeting where representatives of Consumer Energy denied that they had optioned the land specifically for a power plant. Klovski accused them of lying. The Lima Township Board of Trustees passed a 12-month moratorium on new power-generating facilities. A resident of a nearby town organized Neighbors United Against Noxious Consumers Energy, or NUANCE. On the group’s Facebook page, he began a daily podcast “Dear Garrick,” expressing the concerns of the group’s 1,400 members directly to Consumers Energy CEO Garrick Rochow. Weeks later, the company issued a statement that, “We will release the option on the land back to the property owner and withdraw our application.”

Fossil fuel use can simply be banned on a compulsory timetable. The city of Los Angeles, for example, has committed to get all of its energy from fossil-free sources by 2035 – that is, to ban the use of fossil fuel energy. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected, the city halted use of all electricity produced by coal. Electricity was shut off from Utah’s largest coal-fired power plant to Los Angeles. The plant is being converted to hydrogen. Then it will supply power to Los Angeles that will initially be produced from a mix of natural gas and hydrogen. According to the city’s municipally owned utility, LA intends to transition to 100% green hydrogen made exclusively from water and renewable energy, ending its burning of fossil fuels.

When President Trump ordered old, highly polluting coal-fired power plants scheduled for retirement in Colorado to reopen or remain in operation, the legislature passed “Manage Emissions from Electric Generating Units” law to halt or circumvent the order.  While the state did not have the authority to directly nullify the president’s order, it took multiple pathways to render it less effective. It requires more transparency on the costs incurred from running coal units past their retirement dates; directs the Public Utilities Commission to approve new resources to help the state reach its 2030 climate targets; and requires modern pollution controls for any coal plants operating after 2033. According to a Sierra Club analysis, the Trump Administration’s coal orders have already cost Americans over $330 million, directly affecting ratepayers and the public health of surrounding communities. The Colorado legislation keeps the state aligned with its clean energy goals by curbing coal emissions and reinforces critical retirement dates of coal-fired plants, while also directing Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission to set limits on pollutants like nitrous oxides and sulfur dioxide. Other states are also challenging Trump’s coal orders.

More than 1,500 institutions worldwide with over 14 trillion dollars in assets have divested from fossil fuels and others continue to join them. In May 2026 the Santa Clara CA County Board of Supervisors voted to divest its 10-billion-dollar investment pool from fossil fuel companies. The pool had already let $30 million in Chevron and Exxon bonds expire. The resolution means the investment pool will not buy any new fossil fuel company bonds to replace them, and the fund will remain fossil free. The decision followed a joint letter from 21 community groups, including Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action, 350 Silicon Valley, and the Pacifica Climate Committee, urging divestment. Carlos Davidson of the Pacifica Climate Committee said, “Just like with divestment from tobacco and South Africa Apartheid, by divesting we bring attention to the fact that the power of the fossil fuel industry is the single biggest obstacle to government action on climate change.” Divestment from fossil fuels has become more attractive as better Greentech alternatives have become available and as fossil fuel investments increasingly risk becoming stranded assets as a result.

Litigation and legislation

 

 

State and local governments across the country have filed at least 40 lawsuits arguing that the fossil fuel industry should be held accountable for its role accelerating climate change. For example, Multnomah County, Oregon is suing Chevron and other fossil fuel companies for $50 billion for damages resulting from a deadly 2021 heat dome that brought temperatures to 116 degrees and killed 69 people. “Our case seeks to hold the defendants responsible under Oregon law for their deceptions and misrepresentations and failures to warn about the dangers of their fossil fuel products,” said a lawyer for Multnomah County. The county is seeking $50 million in actual damages, $1.5 billion in future damages related to anticipated heat events, and at least $50 billion for an abatement fund to “weatherproof” the county.

In 2024, the Sierra Club and several community and environmental groups sued the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources, challenging the Coastal Use Permit for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project to construct a massive methane gas liquefaction, storage, and export terminal on the Gulf of Mexico — in wetlands that provide critical flood prevention and other vital ecological functions to local communities and the environment. The project would generate greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to operating 14 new coal-fired power plants or 13 million new gasoline powered vehicles. A Louisiana state court terminated the coastal use permit, finding state officials violated the Louisiana Constitution by issuing the Coastal Use Permit without considering its disproportionate effect on the surrounding communities of color and low-income communities, as well as the climate change impacts and cumulative impacts with other export facilities already in the area.

In February 2025, the state of Michigan – fabled auto capital of America – filed a federal lawsuit accusing ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute of engaging in a decades-long conspiracy to block the development of clean energy and electric vehicles in order to ensure that their fossil fuel products dominated the market. According to the complaints, acting as a “cartel,” the defendants robbed consumers of energy and transportation choices in “one of the most successful antitrust conspiracies in United States history.”

State legislation is taking multiple approaches to put the squeeze on fossil fuel production and use. For example, Vermont is the first state to pass a law to charge fossil fuel companies for at least some of the damage their emissions have caused. Vermont’s law, the Climate Superfund Act, is largely modeled on the national superfund law. It instructs the state treasurer and Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources to calculate what fossil fuel emissions have cost the state. The agency then determines the amount of emissions attributable to each fossil fuel company. Each company must then pay into a recovery fund. New York has also passed climate superfund legislation requiring payments to begin in 2028; 11 other states are considering similar legislation. A slew of lawsuits is trying to block the Vermont and New York laws. In May the Trump administration sued both New York and Vermont over their superfund laws and other states over efforts to make polluters pay for harms from climate change. US Attorney General Pam Bondi alleges the laws and other states’ planned legal challenges are “burdensome and ideologically motivated” and “threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security.”

Other legislation to put the screws on utilities is legion; the environmental research group Climate XChange tracked 63 bills in 25 states that cover performance-based pay structures for utilities, limits on utility profits and executive pay, prohibitions on using customer rates for political activity, and expanded price transparency requirements. Hawaii’s SB1396 establishes a “green fee” for transient accommodations to fund response to climate change-related disasters and environmental improvement efforts. The green fee applies to hotels, short-term vacation rentals, timeshares, and similar accommodations and cruise ships.

Such state and local initiatives are far from enough to force the fossil fuel industry to transition to clean Greentech energy. But they contribute to the squeeze on the industry’s value and profits that is already resulting from Greentech competition. And they help lay the groundwork for a future transition from – and abolition of – fossil fuel extraction and use.