California governor blasts US President in visit to China

World Today

California Governor Jerry Brown was in China to reaffirm his state’s commitment to the Paris agreement.

The visit comes just days after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would be pulling out. In a speech, Brown spoke against climate change skepticism and made an economic argument for pursuing green policies.

CGTN’s Sean Callebs filed this report.

“California is all in – 100-percent in meeting the Paris Agreement,” Jerry Brown said.

After a face-to-face session with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders, the California Governor left no doubt where his state stands on the environment.

Brown unloaded on U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris agreement, calling it “insane”.

“In my own country, there’s many skeptics who say: ‘Don’t do anything. Green is a hoax. Green is bad.’ That’s absolutely what they say. Well in California we don’t agree,” Brown said.

China is making it clear, it stands fully behind the historic pact signed in Paris designed to put the brakes on harmful “greenhouse gas” emissions, blamed for elevating the earth’s temperature.

With more than 39-million people, California has a greater population than all of Canada, so cooperation between Beijing and California can be significant according to Brown.

In announcing his decision to pull out of the international climate pact, Trump claimed it was a bad deal for the United States.

“The Paris Climate accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States,” Trump said.

Brown, who met with President Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, offered a different take.

“In the last 12 months, 24-percent of the wealth of America was created in California. California, with the strictest environmental rules and which our critics say are too strict.”

Aside from agreeing to enter into more deals to promote green technologies, the California-China connection could foster a lot more trade measures.

China is already California’s largest trading partner, and President Xi made it clear he would like to see the two work together on the Belt and Road initiative opening doors to infrastructure construction, trade and development of more clean energy.