In the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, California is teaming up with China and Germany to fight climate change.
“Nobody can stay on the sidelines,” said California Gov. Jerry Brown, who recently traveled to China for a clean energy conference. “We can’t afford any dropouts in the tremendous human challenge to make the transition to a sustainable future. Disaster still looms, and we’ve got to make the turn.”
According to The Guardian, Brown had a private meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which the two countries “pledged to expand trade between California and China with an emphasis on so-called green technologies that could help address climate change.”
While China is the both world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter and its biggest user of coal, its leaders have canceled the construction of more than 100 new coal-fired power plants and have committed to investing $360 billion in green technology by 2020. China is currently on track to meet its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction targets set under the Paris accord.
Brown also made similar non-binding agreements with Germany, which has Europe’s largest economy. “California and Germany unite the world leaders in the fight against climate change, the existential threat of our time,” Brown said in a statement released by the German environment ministry, according to Reuters.