When Gov. Roy Cooper takes the stage Wednesday at The New York Times' Climate Forward conference, he plans to deliver a simple message.
"North Carolina's committed to a clean energy future, and we want businesses who share those goals," Cooper said.
Businesses have announced more than $20 billion in clean energy investments in North Carolina, ranging from a spate of battery projects to a solar panel manufacturer to an electric vehicle charging station developer.
Still an August poll from High Point University's Survey Research Center found that addressing climate change was the top priority of only 4% of 1,053 North Carolinians polled.
Improving economic conditions was far and away the leading concern, with 27% of those polled choosing it, followed by managing immigration and protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits, both at 11%.
Those results aren't surprising to Cooper, who said voters are most likely to prioritize issues they believe are impacting their daily lives.
"It is up to leaders -- elected leaders -- to make sure that even though they aren't the most popular campaign issues that they continue to make sure that these policy challenges are faced. Because the long term is so much more difficult to tackle than short-term issues," said Cooper, who noted that climate change is also having short-term effects in the state, namely in the form of severe storms like the unnamed one that dropped about 20 inches of rain in parts of Southeastern North Carolina last week.
Part of the poll's findings may come down to how it asked the question, Martin Kifer, the Survey Research Center's director, told The News & Observer.
When asked what their top priority is, Kifer said, voters are likely to choose the economy, immigration or national security. But when polls ask voters if an issue is important, climate change moves up significantly.
"If you can only choose one, it may not be all that high up the list. But if you ask people, 'What is an important issue to you?' then it doesn't run as low in the pack," Kifer said.
Cooper also argues there is a link between addressing climate change and the economy, at least in North Carolina.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Defense Fund found that $19.2 billion announced in electric vehicle or battery projects in North Carolina since January 2015 were the third-most in the country. That was largely supported by the nearly $14 billion Toyota plans to invest at its Randolph County battery manufacturing plant, a project expected to bring more than 5,000 jobs.
"One of the reasons we've been successful in North Carolina on our clean energy efforts is that it has helped to put money in the pockets of North Carolina families and businesses. The jobs that have been created by these clean (energy companies) coming in create bipartisan support in this arena," Cooper said.
When Cooper visited Edgecombe County last month to announce that Natron Energy would invest almost $1.4 billion to build a sodium-ion battery manufacturing plant at a nearby megasite, he was joined onstage by U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, a Republican, who argued the state's economic success dates back to when Republicans took control of the General Assembly in 2011.
Other recent announcements include:
"Those companies can take the place of other manufacturing that we've had in the past. Our community colleges are gearing up to provide training in these rural areas and I think that these clean energy companies have decided that they can get a quality workforce here not only from the people there but drawing from some of the other suburban counties," Cooper said.
Still, Cooper would like to see the transition move faster. He specifically mentioned frustration with the pace of Duke Energy's transition away from fossil fuels to generate the state's electricity.
When it was passed in 2021, energy legislation set a 2030 target for Duke to slash its carbon emissions 70% from 2025 levels, with the company reaching net zero by 2050.
Since then, Duke has told the N.C. Utilities Commission that it is unrealistic to meet that target while maintaining affordable and reliable electricity, in large part due to rising demand from the state's new manufacturing projects and data centers.
"The Utilities Commission and outside forces need to put more pressure on the utilities to speed up the process of getting to a 70% reduction by 2030 and carbon zero by 2050," Cooper said.
The Utilities Commission must approve any path forward for Duke's electric generating resources, but the utility in late July reached a settlement agreement with Walmart and N.C. Public Staff, the publicly funded ratepayer advocates, on a number of issues. Per that agreement, which has not been approved by the commission, Duke said it would seek information about 0.8 to 1.1 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2034 and 2.2 to 2.4 gigawatts by 2035.
The settlement included a stipulation that all parties, also including the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, agree that it is no longer possible to achieve the 70% target by 2030.
"Bipartisan House Bill 951 put North Carolina on a strong path forward to cleaner energy in a manner that protects grid reliability and affordability while meeting the needs of a growing region," Bill Norton, a Duke spokesman, said in a statement.
Cooper called Duke's approach to offshore wind "soft" and said it may make it difficult for North Carolina to reap the manufacturing and supply chain benefits of an industry a 2021 report prepared for the state's Department of Commerce said could lead to $140 billion in investment nationwide by 2035.
"We know the benefits are there, but there is concern that there is not enough interest from Duke Energy right now to enhance the benefits of offshore wind for North Carolina," Cooper said.