Let the rest of the world spend all their time and money getting renewables down to an affordable cost as well as more efficient. Save your country plenty of money in the mean time by using cheap sources like coal. Then buy the rest of the worlds solar panels and wind turbines once there as cheap or cheaper than coal.
Why let the rest of the world continue to heavily pollute while you and your people spend your hard earned money doing your best to try and go green? The people who will benefit the most from this is the rest of the world.
This is mostly a business decision. It's not great for the environment, but it shouldn't be as bad as some might think. Ever since NA decided to go green, the coal/gas co's broke down and spent a lot of money on clean tech research like coal scrubbers. Some of the tech is pretty impressive, and much less expensive than solar or wind.
This isn't that bad of a move for the states, just as long as they do the right thing and get back into renewables when the time is right.
