Legislators in Colorado, historically a major coal state, have passed more than 50 climate-related laws since 2019. The liquor store in the farming town of Morris, Minn., cools its beer with solar power. Voters in Athens, Ohio, imposed a carbon fee on themselves. Citizens in Fairfax County, Va., teamed up for a year and a half to produce a 214-page climate action plan.

Across the country, communities and states are accelerating their efforts to fight climate change as action stalls on the national level. This week, the Supreme Court curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, one of the biggest sources of planet-warming pollution — the latest example of how the Biden administration’s climate tools are getting chipped away.

During the Trump administration, which aggressively weakened environmental and climate protections, local efforts gained importance. Now, experts say, local action is even more critical for the United States — which is second only to China in emissions — to have a chance at helping the world avert the worst effects of global warming.

This patchwork approach is no substitute for a coordinated national strategy. Local governments have limited reach, authority and funding.

But as the legislative and regulatory options available in Washington, D.C., become increasingly constrained, “States are really critical to helping the country as a whole achieve our climate goals,” said Kyle Clark-Sutton, manager of the analysis team for the United States program at RMI, a clean energy think tank. “They have a real opportunity to lead. They have been leading.”

New York and Colorado, for example, are on track to reduce electricity-related emissions 80 percent or more by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, according to new state scorecards from RMI.

By removing partisan politics from community discussions about climate policy, it’s sometimes possible to reach a consensus that’s been difficult to achieve on a national level.

That is what happened in Morris, a city of about 5,000 in Minnesota, not far from the South Dakota border. There, the University of Minnesota Morris campus leans left politically, while surrounding farming communities lean right. But both communities broadly support — and have helped to shape — the “Morris Model,” which calls for reducing energy consumption 30 percent by 2030, producing 80 percent of the county’s electricity locally by 2030 (thus guaranteeing it comes from renewable sources) and eliminating landfill waste by 2025.

“We’ve never focused on climate as being the thing to talk about, because you don’t have to,” said Blaine Hill, the city manager, noting the benefits of lower energy bills and more local economic activity from the locally produced power. “You can go around that and just start working on stuff.”

Morris has solar panels on its community center, library, liquor store and city hall. It has installed an electric-vehicle charging station at the grocery store and is working on a composting program. The university has solar panels on poles, high enough for cows to graze underneath, and two wind turbines.

The University of Minnesota’s West Central Research and Outreach Center uses wind energy to create fertilizer for crops that grow beneath the turbines — circumventing the traditional, emissions-intensive process of making fertilizer, which is normally derived from petroleum.

Mike Reese, the director of renewable energy at the research center, said it didn’t matter that he had political disagreements with Troy Goodnough, the sustainability director at the University of Minnesota Morris.

“Troy is on the more liberal side, I’m on the more conservative side,” Mr. Reese said. “But we also share the same philosophies when it comes to changing climate, resiliency, but especially on generating wealth and making our community better for the next generations.”