SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday opened an international climate summit by saying that history will not remember President Donald Trump well when it comes to his actions pushing for more coal power and looser pollution standards for power plants and vehicles.
“I think he’ll be remembered, on the path he’s on now — liar, criminal, fool,” said Brown. “Pick your choice.”
Brown, who has made addressing climate change a central issue of his final term in office, blasted Trump for directing his administration to try and dismantle California’s tough vehicle emissions standards, his acts to roll back federal controls on power plant pollution and on emissions of methane from oil and gas operations.
“Altogether, that’s a major assault on the well-being of the people of California and America and the world,” Brown said. “It borders on not only insanity, but criminality.”
Brown and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg discussed the release of a new report from an organization of cities, states and other local governments known as “America’s Pledge,” that aims to meet the goals that the Obama administration agreed to under the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, even though Trump said he will pull the United States out.
The new report noted that America has cut its emissions of greenhouse gases 12 percent since 2005. Obama agreed to reduce them at least 26 percent by 2025.
Much of the difference can be made up, Bloomberg said by local governments buying more renewable energy, supporting incentives for electric vehicles, passing more efficient building standards and taking other methods that don’t require the Trump administration or federal government’s approval.
If such measures were adopted broadly, the report estimates the U.S. could achieve a 24 percent reduction by 2025.
“While the spotlight is on Washington, the real action is happening in the states,” said Bloomberg, adding “There is every reason to be optimistic.”
Brown noted that earlier this week, he signed a law requiring 100 percent of California’s electricity to come from renewable sources like solar and wind, or carbon-free sources like large dams and nuclear power, by 2045. Currently, California receives 32 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.
“We’re getting it done, but we have a very tall mountain to climb,” Brown said, comparing the effort to being “at the base camp of Mount Everest.”
The Paris agreement is a voluntary effort in which every country in the world pledged to take steps to boost renewable energy, decrease carbon emissions from transportation sources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are trapping heat in the world’s atmosphere. The goal is to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius — 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — by the end of this century, a level scientists say will reduce the severity of droughts, massive forest fires, major sea level rise and other calamities.
“The consequences of either doing so or not doing so are not only for us, but for everyone,” said Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat who is executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
An estimated 4,500 scientists, activists, political leaders and others are in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit, which runs through Friday. The event is aimed at getting more agreements from cities, states, provinces, countries and corporations, essentially going around Trump, who has said that climate change is a hoax, even as his federal agencies, NASA and NOAA, report that the 10 hottest years globally since 1880 when modern temperature records began, all have occurred since 1998.