👋 Hi, everybody! If you received an extra email from me on Tuesday (with a repeat of our tipping points newsletter from a couple weeks ago) — my apologies! We were troubleshooting some code and the email made a break for it. Hopefully you enjoyed reading about tipping points for a second time (or possibly for the first time). 

This week, we’re rounding up some of the results of Tuesday’s election, which carried some encouraging news for climate action at the city and state levels. We’ve also got some news stories for y’all about renewables and battery storage on the grid, stateside and abroad.

This post originally appeared in Grist’s weekly solutions newsletter, Looking Forward. Not on our list yet? Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Friday.

Voters want clean, affordable energy

Collage of voting booth and green ballot snippets on a blue background

Grist / Getty Images

This Tuesday marked the first major election in the Trump 2.0 era. Odd-year elections are often viewed as a sort of temperature check for the nation — and in spite of the federal government’s assault on climate and environmental protections, the results from Tuesday’s polls are pretty encouraging for the future of climate action in the U.S. 

In the wake of Trump’s election last November, some have suggested that Democrats leaned too heavily into messaging about climate change, which is not the top concern for most voters in the U.S. In this election cycle, many candidates didn’t talk about climate specifically, but leaned into climate-friendly policies and issues that proved popular with voters. 

As my colleague Sophie Hurwitz wrote on Wednesday, rising energy costs played a key role in several races:

New Jersey and Virginia governors: New Jersey has had a Democratic governor since 2018, but the race was neck-and-neck leading up to the election. Both Democrat Mikie Sherrill and her opponent, Jack Ciatarelli, campaigned on cost of living, but Sherrill, who came out victorious, placed a particular emphasis on energy costs. She promised to declare “a state of emergency on energy costs” on her first day in office, with plans to build out rooftop solar, battery storage, and nuclear capacity. 

In Virginia (my home state!) Democratic Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, who flipped control of that office and will become the state’s first female governor, similarly pledged to expand wind and solar along with efficiency measures like home weatherization, all part of her “Affordable Virginia” plan. Virginia’s new lieutenant governor also campaigned on an affordability platform and represents another historic first — Ghazala Hashmi is the first Muslim woman to win a statewide election.

Georgia Public Service Commission: Georgia voted on Tuesday for two seats on the Public Service Commission, a relatively unknown government body that regulates utilities and holds significant power over both energy prices and renewable energy development. The Democratic candidates running against incumbent commissioners focused on recent energy rate hikes and emphasized expanding renewable energy as part of a plan to meet demand, stem costs, and shore up the grid against extreme weather threats. In the end, both seats were won by the challengers, marking the first time Democrats will serve on the board in nearly two decades.

New York City and Boston mayors: Another significant win on Tuesday was New York’s new Democratic Socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Although Mamdani has a strong track record as a climate leader, even at one point calling himself an “ecosocialist,” he kept relatively mum about climate change during his mayoral campaign. Instead, his centerpiece message was about affordability. But, as Sophie wrote, many saw glimmers of a populist climate movement in the quality-of-life improvements that defined his platform, like free public transit and green schoolyards. 

Boston’s mayor, Michelle Wu, ran unopposed but scored another victory: Her allies in city council retained their seats, meaning she has the support she needs to push forward an ambitious Green New Deal agenda released this past summer, including free bus routes, net-zero building requirements, and other climate proposals.

Local transit initiatives: In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which includes the city of Charlotte, voters gave the green light to a 1 percent increase in the sales tax to fund a nearly $20 billion transportation plan; 40 percent of that will go toward a rail buildout, while 20 percent will go to buses and microtransit. On the other side of the country in Ellensburg, Washington, voters approved a smaller, permanent addition to their sales tax (0.2 percent) to fund their public transit system. 

If Tuesday’s results are any indication, the cheap energy agenda that some Democrats have embraced is resonating with voters, and political momentum may be growing for a message built around how climate action can intersect with accessible services and a lower cost of living. 

“I think yesterday was a repudiation of the idea that Americans don’t care about energy or climate and these are losing issues, which is what all of these pundits have been going on and on about for about nine months now. That’s really wrong,” political scientist Leah Stokes told Sophie on Wednesday. “Everyday people understand that clean energy is cheap energy — they can easily make those connections.”

Read more:

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⭐ Seeing Energy Stars

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🔋 Here’s looking at you, grid

In Illinois, state lawmakers passed an energy reform package last week aimed at tackling rising costs. The plan includes bringing 3 gigawatts of new battery storage capacity to the state’s grid, as well as funding geothermal, home energy-efficiency measures, and lifting a moratorium on large-scale nuclear reactors. Read more

🌎 COP to it

On the global stage, the annual U.N. climate conference, known as COP30, will begin officially next week in Belém, Brazil. This year’s gathering marks a decade since the signing of the Paris Agreement, and countries for the most part are failing to live up to its ambition. But as Brazil takes the reins of the conference, here are five key issues to keep an eye on. Read more

In other news

And finally, looking forward to …

… the future of cheap energy.   

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One thing you remember about your dad is how much he complained about the price of gas. You never quite understood why he held onto his boiler and gas-powered car as long as he did — one of the last in the county. Maybe he just liked having something to grumble about.  

When he moved into the nursing home, he constantly asked about the cost of heating the place. Trying to explain the solar microgrid to him was futile. 

If he could see your home energy bill now, in the same house he raised you in, you wonder what he’d say.

— a drabble by Claire Elise Thompson

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A drabble is a 100-word piece of fiction — in this case, offering a tiny glimpse of what a clean, green, just future might look like. Want to try writing your own (and see it featured in a future newsletter)? We would love to hear from you! Please send us your visions for our climate future, in drabble form, at lookingforward@grist.org

👋 See you next week!