Governor Gavin Newsom focused on California’s climate leadership during his speech at the start of Climate Week NYC on Monday. Newsom spoke to a gathering of foreign dignitaries about how his state can be a model for the country and the world.
"As we change the way we produce and consume energy, it is spawning new companies, new energy, new growth. We lead in venture capital and green tech," said Governor Newsom. "Five to one -- five to one, the number of clean energy jobs in the State of California versus fossil fuel jobs. Which makes then the paradigm of this notion of alternative energy flip on its head. Alternative energy in the State of California is fossil fuel energy."
Newsom added that he can't understand why President Trump has attempted to circumvent the state's attempts to set higher pollution standards.
"To bring in as the President did the automobile manufactures, threaten their very existence with tariffs, threatening their business models if they continued to negotiate with the State of California," said Newsom. "I mean, that stuff doesn’t happen in many counties in the world anymore, let alone in 2019 in the United States of America. That’s humiliating and we have a responsibility to do something about that."
Newsom also penned an opinion piece that was published in Newsweek online in which he claims that California has been setting its own pollution standards since 1966, and he touts the state's economy.
"California is significantly outperforming the United States of America in GDP growth over a five-year period -- not despite our environmental strategies, but because of our environmental strategies"
The Governor said the key to changes that will help counter climate change is go local. He insisted remarkable things are happening at the local level, as politicians on the left and the right are doing something and applying their values at scale.