Leading to Linkage with California and Québec

For the first panel of our 2026 Future of Carbon Policy Forum, we were thrilled to host three incredible leaders of North American carbon markets: Joel Creswell, the Climate Pollution Reduction Manager with the Washington State Department of Ecology; Jean-Yves Benoit, the Director General of Carbon Regulation and Emissions Data with the Québec Ministry of the Environment, and Rajinder Sahota, the Deputy Executive Officer for Climate Change & Research with the California Air Resources Board. We were grateful to have Kelly Trombley, the Senior Director of State Policy at Ceres, as our moderator!

*From left to right: Joel Creswell, Jean-Yves Benoit, Rajinder Sahota, Kelly Trombley*

By linking with California and Québec, Washington state would join the fourth-largest carbon market in the world. Clean & Prosperous is bullish on linkage: It will provide substantial near-and long-term benefits aligned with the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) goals, including program durability, market stability, lower compliance costs, reduced leakage risk, increased investment predictability, and the potential for enhanced collective ambition across jurisdictions.

Jean-Yves Benoit made the case for collaboration across jurisdictions through linkage: “No government is big enough to solve [the climate crisis] on its own…That’s why we designed a cap-and-trade program that can link with other governments. The broader the program…the faster we can reduce our emissions and the faster we can prevent the impacts of climate change. It’s about protecting the environment but it’s also about protecting our economy and our development.”

In terms of timeline, Joel Creswell affirmed that Washington state remains on track to link with California and Québec before the November 1, 2027 CCA compliance deadline.

Thank you to our sponsors for making the 2026 Future of Carbon Policy Forum possible!

Build Sustainable High Impact Infrastructure Together In the News!

In case you missed it: Ahead of our 2026 Future of Carbon Policy Forum, we released our Build Sustainable High Impact Infrastructure Together report, which evaluated more than 250 individual clean energy projects and found billions of dollars in economic activity and hundreds of thousands of jobs that could be lost due to permitting, siting, and interconnection delays.

Since its release, the Build SHIIT report has helped start and scale up conversations about the urgent need to build more clean energy infrastructure much faster.

KNKX spoke with our Government Relations Director, Isaac Kastama, as well as WA Dept. of Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller and WA Dept. of Commerce Director Joe Nguyen about the Build SHIIT report. From the story: “The humor is meant to call attention to a serious issue. Despite leading the nation in climate policy, Washington has fallen far behind in renewable energy growth. Recent reporting from ProPublica and OPB showed Washington ranked dead last among U.S. states in renewable energy growth. A major reason for this is an extensive backlog of clean energy projects.”

The Seattle Times Editorial Board cited the Build SHIIT report in a recent editorial on the highest and best use of Climate Commitment Act funding: “The Legislature ought to focus [Climate Commitment Act] investments on the greatest greenhouse gas-emission reductions…The groups’ findings identify 258 clean energy projects that could move forward over the next decade if development processes improve. State funding ought to play a part in making these happen.”

Finally, the Everett Herald Editorial Board referenced our work in an editorial on the need to scale up clean energy to meet projected load growth needs, while keeping power prices fair for consumers: “A report this year by Clean and Prosperous, a clean energy advocate, counted more than 250 clean energy projects that have been delayed, totaling more than $149 billion in suspended economic activity and representing more than 580,000 jobs; projects that could boost the supply of clean power and better moderate electricity costs, regardless of data center projects.”

Thank you to our partners Greenline Insights for authoring the report and Climate Solutions for helping make it possible!

Explore our Build SHIIT website to learn more: https://cleanandprosperous.org/build-shiit-now/.

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