California\u2019s politicians aren\u2019t known for being shy when it comes to addressing progressive policies, and Governor Jerry Brown is no different. On Wednesday, while visiting China for a clean energy conference, Governor Brown did not mince words, telling NBC News he fears U.S. Congress members are \u201cgoing back to some medieval period\u201d by refusing to act on climate change.<\/p>\n
Following Trump\u2019s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, Chinese officials issued a statement last Friday condemning Trump for making a grave mistake. With Trump going against the international momentum to fight climate change, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Brown instead to discuss alternative options moving forward. In a meeting held at Beijing\u2019s Great Hall of the People, a ceremonial space usually reserved for the world\u2019s most powerful leaders, Brown and Xi discussed how they could collaborate on policies to fight global warming.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sure, it\u2019s not typical for a state official to conduct the sole meeting with another country\u2019s president at a climate conference, but these are not typical times. According to the The New York Times,<\/em> Brown told journalists, \u201cCalifornia\u2019s leading, China\u2019s leading. It\u2019s true I didn\u2019t come to Washington, I came to Beijing. Well, someday I\u2019m going to go to Washington, but not this week.\u201d According to NBC, Brown said Washington is exercising\u00a0a \u201cwillful blindness\u201d in regard to global warming.<\/p>\n Though this isn\u2019t the first time Brown suggested state and city officials move forward on energy reform while Washington catches up. Before Trump officially announced his decision, Brown made it known he\u2019d be pressing ahead regardless. This preemptive decision also might explain how 12 states and more than 200 U.S. cities formed the\u00a0United States Climate Alliance so quickly after Trump\u2019s announcement. With California being an economic powerhouse and innovation leader, it stands to make up for Washington\u2019s lack of urgency when it comes to climate chance.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m more energized and activated than ever,\u201d Brown told reporters toward the end of his trip. \u201cAnd I think that we\u2019re actually making more progress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" California\u2019s politicians aren\u2019t known for being shy when it comes to addressing progressive policies, and Governor Jerry Brown is no different. On Wednesday, while visiting China for a clean energy conference, Governor Brown did not mince words, telling NBC News he fears U.S. Congress members are \u201cgoing back to some medieval period\u201d by refusing to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}