A group of progressive politicians and advocates are reframing emissions-cutting measures as a form of economic populism as the Trump administration derides climate policy as a “scam” and fails to deliver on promises to tame energy costs and inflation.
Climate politics were once cast as a test of moral resolve, calling on Americans to accept higher costs to avert environmental catastrophe, but that ignores how rising temperatures themselves drive up costs for working people, said Stevie O’Hanlon, co-founder of the youth-led Sunrise Movement.
“People increasingly understand how climate and costs of living are tied together,” she said.
Utility bills and healthcare costs are climbing as extreme weather intensifies. Public transit systems essential to climate goals are reeling from federal funding cuts. Rents are rising as landlords pass along costs of inefficient buildings, higher insurance and disaster repairs, turning climate risk into a monthly surcharge. Meanwhile, wealth inequality is surging under an administration that took record donations from big oil.
“We need to connect climate change to the everyday economic reality we are all facing in this country,” said O’Hanlon.
Progressive politicians have embraced that notion. Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s democratic socialist mayor-elect, has advanced affordability-first climate policies such as free buses to reduce car use, and a plan to make schools more climate-resilient. Seattle’s socialist mayor-elect, Katie Wilson, says she will boost social housing while pursuing green retrofits.
NYC Mayor-Mamdani
FILE – Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, center, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., appear on stage during a rally, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa, File) Photograph: Heather Khalifa/AP
Maine’s US Senate hopeful Graham Platner is pairing calls to rein in polluters and protect waterways with a critique of oligarchic politics. In Nebraska, independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn backs right-to-repair laws that let farmers and consumers fix equipment – an approach he doesn’t frame as climate policy, but one that climate advocates say could reduce emissions from manufacturing. And in New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats “who are by no means radical leftists” ran successful campaigns focused on lowering utility costs, O’Hanlon said.
Movements nationwide are also working to cut emissions while building economic power. Chicago’s teachers’ union secured a contract requiring solar panels to be added to schools and creating clean-energy career pathways for students. Educators’ unions in Los Angeles and Minneapolis are also seeking to improve conditions for staff and students while decarbonizing.
“We see them as real protagonists in the fight for what we [at the Climate and Community Institute] are calling ‘green economic populism,’” said Rithika Ramamurthy, communications director at the leftwing climate thinktank Climate and Community Institute.
From Maine to Texas, organized labor is also pushing for a unionized workforce to decarbonize energy and buildings. And tenants’ unions are working to green their residences while protecting renters from climate disasters and rising bills, Ramamurthy said. From Connecticut to California, they are fighting for eviction protections, which can prevent post-disaster displacement and empower tenants to demand green upgrades. Some are also directly advocating for climate-friendly retrofits.
Movements are also working to expand public ownership energy, which proponents say can strengthen democratic control and lower rates by eliminating shareholder profits. In New York, a coalition won a 2023 policy directing the state-owned utility to build renewable energy with a unionized workforce, and advocates are pursuing a consumer-owned utility in Maine and a public takeover of the local utility in Baltimore.
To hold polluters accountable for their climate contributions, activists and lawmakers across the country are championing policies that would force them to help pay to curb emissions and boost resilience. Vermont and New York passed such “climate superfund” laws this year, while New York and Maine are expected to vote on such measures soon. And legislators in other states are looking to introduce or reintroduce bills in 2026, even as the Trump administration attempts to kill the laws.
“When insurance becomes unaffordable and states are constantly rebuilding after disasters, people don’t need some technical explanation to know that something is seriously wrong,” said Cassidy DiPaola, spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign. “Climate superfunds connect those costs to accountability by saying that the companies that caused the damage shouldn’t be shielded from paying for it.” Polls show the bills appear popular, she said.
Speaking to people’s financial concerns can help build support for climate policy, said DiPaola. Polls show voters support accountability measures against polluters and that most believe the climate crisis is driving up costs of living.
“The fastest way to depolarize climate is to simply talk about who’s paying and who’s profiting,” she said. “People disagree about a lot of things, but they do understand being ripped off.”
Linking green initiatives with economic concerns isn’t new. It was central to the Green New Deal, popularized by the Sunrise Movement and politicians like the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. That push informed Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which included the biggest climate investments in US history. But critics argue the IRA fell short of building economic power among ordinary people.
Though it boosted green manufacturing and created some 400,000 new jobs, those benefits were not tangible to most Americans, said Ramamurthy. Proposed investments in housing and public transit – which may have been more visible – were scaled back in the final package. Its incentives also largely went to private companies and wealthier households. A 2024 poll found only 24% of registered voters thought the IRA helped them.
“The IRA focused on creating incentives for capital, relying almost entirely on carrots with very few sticks,” said Ramamurthy.
While it advanced renewables, the IRA also contained handouts for polluters, O’Hanlon said. And Biden did not pair its passage with messaging acknowledging economic hardship, she said.
“The administration was great on connecting jobs and green energy,” she said. “But they said the economy was doing well, which felt out of touch.”
Trump capitalized on Americans’ economic anxieties, said O’Hanlon, but has not offered them relief.
“We need a vision that can actually combat the narrative Trump has been putting out,” she said. “We need a vision for addressing the climate crisis alongside making life better for for working people.”
