On Thursday, March 27, former Governor Jay Inslee was announced as one of the six winners of Time Magazine’s 2025 Earth Awards. The other winners honored were billionaire Michael Bloomberg, Ghanaian Chef Selassie Atadika, former Tennessee Republican Senator Bill Frist, actor Rainn Wilson, and environmental researcher Catherine Coleman Flowers.
“There are two immutable forces that we ought to know President Donald Trump cannot stop,” wrote Inslee. “The first is the incoming tide of the ocean. The second is the growth of the clean-energy economy. He cannot hold back the rising tide because no steady stream of bluster, prevarication, or snake-oil salesmanship can have any effect on gravitational forces that rule the tides. Likewise, he cannot stop our creation of a clean-energy economy, because he cannot thwart the tremendously successful local efforts by leaders in states and towns who, by pushing for concrete, bold action on climate, are now growing green jobs like gangbusters.”
Since becoming governor in 2013, the Inslee administration drove the nation leading policies to tackle pollution and develop a clean energy economy, including:
- A landmark clean electricity policy that puts Washington on the nation’s most ambitious pathway to 100% clean electricity by 2045
- A nation-leading clean buildings policy to phase fossil fuels out of new building construction
- The Climate Commitment Act, a market-based cap-and-invest program with robust environmental justice provisions that is helping fund new climate-friendly transportation options and community investments to help businesses and families transition away from fossil fuels
- Rapid electric vehicle adoption that has earned Washington the second highest rate of electric and plug-in hybrid sales in the nation. Inslee’s Administration has awarded grants to install more than 5,000 EV chargers.
- Launching the state’s Clean Energy Fund, the Institute for Northwest Energy Futures at Washington State University, and the Clean Energy Institute at University of Washington, programs that have created and supported dozens of new technologies and business ventures.
In October 2024, while attending Climate Week NYC, Inslee was recognized as one of 50 honorees to Forbes Magazine’s inaugural Sustainability Leaders List.
The Forbes inaugural Sustainability Leaders List honored entrepreneurs, scientists, philanthropists, investors, politicians and activists leading global efforts to combat the climate crisis. The list was vetted by a panel of climate experts: Sylvia Earle, Laurene Powell Jobs, Bill McKibben, Nnimmo Bassey and Tom Baruch.
Author: Mario Lotmore
