The states of Washington and California and the province of Québec signed an agreement Thursday that brings them one step closer to setting up the largest carbon market in North America.
What happened: The top climate regulators from the three governments — California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez, Washington Department of Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller and Québec Minister of the Environment Pascale Déry — signed the agreement, which lays out a road map for how the governments would run sales of pollution permits together, track pollution credits across borders and coordinate to police the market.
California and Québec have already jointly run their carbon markets for over a decade, and Washington has been preparing to join since it created its own market in 2021. The agreement by itself does not formally link the programs, but it paves the way for the next regulatory steps each government must take toward what they say would be the largest carbon market run by subnational governments.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, cast the move as a counterweight to President Donald Trump, who has rolled back federal climate programs and threatened the authority of blue states like California to make their own climate rules.
