https://time.com/7329765/case-climate-impact-fee/
by Josh Green – Dr. Josh Green is the governor of Hawaii, named as one of the Time100 Climate for 2025
Excerpt:
The devastation on Maui forced a reckoning: how do we address the underlying risk, not just the aftermath? How do we raise long-term, reliable funds to harden our infrastructure, restore natural buffers, reduce wildfire fuel loads, and prepare our water, transportation, and energy systems for the new climate reality?
Out of that need, we introduced legislation to create the Climate Impact Fee, also known as Hawaii’s “Green Fee.” The concept was simple but powerful: if tourism, which depends on our natural beauty, contributes to our environmental footprint, then a small portion of visitor lodging taxes should help pay for climate resilience. The burden is modest, just 0.75% added to the state’s Transient Accommodations Tax, but the return is transformative.
Under State Senate Bill 1396, signed into law in May 2025, this surcharge is projected to generate at least $100 million annually. That revenue will be dedicated exclusively to mitigate climate impact. It cannot be swept into unrelated spending. Instead, it will support coastal restoration, firebreak construction, invasive species control, stormwater system upgrades, and other climate-buffering projects, with a state climate advisory council and annual legislative review providing oversight.
We also expanded the fee to cruise passengers, prorated by their time in port. Altogether, this is the first fully integrated, statewide system in the United States to fund climate adaptation through tourism. And critically, it is forward-funded. We no longer have to wait for disaster to strike and hope for emergency appropriations. We are investing now, before the next devastating storm, fire, or drought.
Hawaii’s Climate Impact Fee is not just a local solution, it’s a model that other states can adapt to their needs. Whether you’re a coastal community facing sea-level rise, a western state battling record wildfires, or a lowland region vulnerable to flooding rivers, the message is the same: none of us can afford to pretend we are still in the past. We have to prepare for the future now.
In time, the Climate Impact Fee could serve as a model for a national network of state-led climate resilience financing strategies, bottom-up models that recognize climate adaptation is now core public infrastructure.
