Gov. Josh Green has signed a “pledge” to commit $100 million in state general funds to address climate change through a new “Climate Impact Fund.”

The money commitment, which will have to be approved by the Legislature, modifies Green’s previous plan to use $100 million from the state’s rainy day fund to help mitigate climate change.

Green quietly signed the pledge Thursday night at Washington Place with no fanfare while U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk was in town and present at the signing.

Green told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Monday that he hopes the $100 million leads to matching private funds, along with federal money — all augmented by a potential state visitor green fee at certain locations to offset tourists’ impacts on Hawaii’s environment and climate change that Green campaigned on.

The initial $100 million would lead to long-term, continued funding through the so-called tourist “green fee,” Green said.

He told the Star-Advertiser that he could not wait to act aggressively on climate change.

“I’m like everybody else,” Green said. “I see properties falling into the ocean. We see climate change is real. I don’t think we need a task force work group to determine that we should invest in the environment. What executive leadership is is to give big ideas and let the (Legislature) determine how to best fine-tune it. The whole state knows we have to deal with the effects of climate change, so we’re going to do it.”

Hawaii is estimated to need $28 billion over the next 30 years to address the effects of climate change, and Green hopes an initial $100 million investment shows a commitment by Hawaii to continue to fund progress through other sources, including from private interests doing business in Hawaii.

“It’s better to get ahead of that rather than burden future generations through taxes,” he said. “The sky’s the limit as long as we show our commitment.”

Green’s updated pledge represents his ambitious and urgent approach to deal with serious issues confronting the islands, said Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center.

“This is him doing what he said he was going to do,” Moore said. “This is Josh Green’s style. He moves aggressively and often folks are caught flat-footed.”

Green’s pledge sends an early and clear message to the Legislature that he will stake out bold positions on popular issues in Hawaii such as mitigating climate change, Moore said. “There’s going to be a lot of grumbling, but I don’t think there’s going to be a large pushback to block what I think is a very popular issue,” Moore said.

While it’s unlikely that the Legislature would challenge Green’s plan head-on, legislative committee members likely will grill administration representations on details of how to spend the $100 million — just as they did to Green appointee Ikaika Anderson to lead the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands last week on DHHL’s plan to spend $600 million in record funding to help clear the backlog of home lands beneficiaries.

“That’s where the payback will come, diving into the details, which is their responsibility,” Moore said. “The administration has to be prepared to answer the questions. The administration knows it doesn’t have a lot of allies in the Legislature. So I don’t think it’s too worried about angering people. But some of the appointees will be raked over the coals, and there’s going to be a lot of questions on specifics, which is the Legislature’s responsibility.”

Green kicked off Hawaii’s Climate Action Week on Jan. 9 by pledging to dedicate $100 million to address climate change, which was wildly applauded by environmentalists.

“Yes, the budget is healthy, and climate is a priority for not just our administration, but for the state and for our times,” Green told the Star-Advertiser.

More details will come out in an administrative funding bill that is still being written. Specifics of a visitor impact fee are expected in a separate administration bill.

If approved by the Legislature, the $100 million would go the state’s Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption Committee, comprising 20 representatives of state agencies.

The committee currently focuses on planning to mitigate climate change, but it would then be responsible for how best to use the $100 million to address climate change.

Before Green signed his climate pledge at Washington Place, Turk — the U.S. deputy secretary of energy — spoke about “decarbonization and energy self-sufficiency” across the islands at the University of Hawaii earlier in the day at the Hawai‘i Energy Policy Forum.

Turk said Hawaii and the U.S. Department of Energy have a “unique, historical partnership” that can be replicated across the Pacific region to address climate change.

“As the first state in the nation to legislate a 100% renewable energy portfolio standard, Hawaii moved to the forefront of a global clean energy transition, demonstrating the viability of a transformed power grid to reduce the island’s dependence on fossil fuels,” Turk said in prepared remarks.