What will you do as governor to address climate change?
Governor
Bill Walker
Nonpartisan candidate for Governor
Alaska is at ground zero in the battle against climate change. We will re-establish the Climate Change Action Leadership Team we established, whose work was halted and the commission disbanded by the current administration, and we will work to implement the action plan created by that team to take significant state-level actions to combat climate change.
Climate change also brings opportunities for Alaska due to the magnitude of stored carbon in our forests and tundra. Our administration will look to innovative ways for the state to benefit economically while contributing meaningfully to global efforts to stem climate change.
Charlie Pierce
Republican candidate for Governor
Government can respond to the weather. It can’t control it.
Les Gara
Democratic candidate for Governor
I have a record fighting climate change while allowing responsible development. I voted for our Renewable Energy Fund, which put $50 million annually into helping startup renewable energy projects across the state. Gov. Dunleavy hasn’t funded that amount once.
I co-wrote Alaska’s only rules requiring state, school and university buildings to be built to cost-effective energy efficiency rules, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
I believe in using our oil wealth to help build renewable energy projects across rural and urban Alaska. Renewable energy helps stem global warming, lowers energy costs and puts people to work.
To more forward, we need the revenue to do this, and ending Alaska oil company subsidies would help us move forward on a better, cleaner, lower-cost energy policy.
Mike Dunleavy
Republican candidate for Governor
As long as billions of people on the planet are working to lift themselves out of poverty, including right here in Alaska, demand for oil and natural gas will continue for decades. Alaska does not flare or vent natural gas to produce oil, and the Alaska LNG Project will reduce carbon emissions by 77 million tons or more over the project’s life, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. We produce oil and gas with a lower carbon footprint than virtually any other jurisdiction on the planet, which means that stopping resource production in Alaska will only push it to other places with fewer environmental safeguards. That said, Alaska will be a leader in clean energy in all its forms, from established sources such as wind or solar or emerging technologies in tidal or micronuclear. We already produce more than 30% of our utility-scale electric power through renewables, from Kodiak to north of the Arctic Circle at Kotzebue. I’m committed to doing even more. I’ve introduced legislation for a renewable portfolio standard and a green bank. The Alaska Energy Authority is currently working with the Railbelt utilities to upgrade our transmission lines to add more power from independent renewable power producers and the state-owned Bradley Lake hydro plant.