Governor Jerry Brown had an unexpected meeting with China's president today. Brown knew his weeklong visit to China would include conferences with many top local officials for China's president really needs with anyone who is not a president or prime minister. That seems to add to the importance that the claimant agreement is taking on. Brown is hoping to forge new alliances on clean energy and electric vehicles with Chinese provinces as Washington steps back from international climate action. Then Bradford reports. Brown spent his first three days in a pleasure -- blizzard of meetings. He met with heads of some of China's most populous regions. He met with ministers and even the Chinese President. There's no real discussion or negotiation in the stocks. Is more ceremonial. Brown and the Chinese officials said in the center of a partially carpeted conference room with a small table between them flanked by and exactly the will number of staff to hear general statements about collaboration through translators California has been premier in the new [Indiscernible]. And they exchange gifts. [Indiscernible] The meetings often and with the agreements to work together. They are nonbinding which is typical and also true of the Paris agreement and also Brown's climate change coalition. And and April coalition University climate scientists said it makes it hard to judge the effects. The devil is always in the details. Whether they will be able to actually follow through on their plans to report back. The Governor's office says they will not know the cost of the trip until after but you can bet Brown gallivanting halfway around the globe with 200 staff at the same time as he is proposing slowing state spending will be fodder for critics. No conversation. Brown says it is a necessary step to open the way for concrete actions. How do you do anything when you have hundreds of millions of people. You have to have paper and you have to have scientists and bureaucrats and the need lawyers. There is one lawyer -- area where they have made a specific plea and nearly all of the meetings. We need to join with Chinese companies to produce better batteries more efficient batteries and my electric cars. California has a goal of putting 1 1/2 million electric cars on the roads by 2025 about six times the current number and that will buy less expensive batteries. The China Center for transportation at UC Davis happened to be on our train to Beijing. There is one immediate practical application for Chinese companies that want to compete in the US market. [Indiscernible-heavy accent]. Now they can have government statements to support that. They have something over their head so they can say I'm following the government's agreement. A statement like this from the minister -- I hope Governor Brown can someday said in that [Indiscernible] reproducing California. That can open the door for Chinese company to bring my electric vehicle to California for the Governor dissident. With the California delegation in Beijing I am then Bradford. 20 me for Morris David Siders Senior reporter covering California. We are talking with him via Skype. How big of a deal is the mini between the Chinese President and Governor Brown? Has met with him two or three times before. That had a relationship and it is a big deal in China than it is here. This is a country were protocol really matters. As you heard from been in that report many of these meetings are set up really formal meetings that may be do not carry so much weight in the United States. I think they do have some significance in China. He met with Governor Brown but did not meet with Rick Perry the secretary of energy who was also at the local conference. To know that they discussed They met for about 45 minutes and spoke about green technology innovation and technology in general. And sharing information. Despite pulling out of the parent agreement we hurt California signing its own nonbinding deals with provinces. What sort of agreement as he making? I will say for the past three or four years he's been making nonbinding [Indiscernible] around the world. The range from things like scientists who share information I cap and trade and things like is under two you initiative which has 170 mostly subnational [Indiscernible] to make steps to limit emissions. I guess it would be odd to some people that Governor Brown is China as apartment. China is the world's top greenhouse gas polluter and the largest funder of new coal power projects. Why China? It's interesting. The last time the governor went over there he was on cruises with his is in this guy. I think the mission in China is the same that it is anywhere in the ground. It is California them no matter what the different greenhouse gas emissions it represents something like 1% of world emissions. The only way that California or Jerry Brown has significant on the world stage and makes different is whatever they are doing their helps bring other places along. He sees China both as a partner but also as a target. He views this as an X essential -- as an existential threat. If the world is going to fight climate change it needs to happen in places like China. Governor Brown went with a crew of roughly about 200 people at the strip. He traveled with him a few years ago. How is that different than what this trip is sounding like? California was coming out of its recession. Jerry Brown had not traveled internationally very much. He traveled in the business delegation was much more [Indiscernible] but also there was much talk about trade and high-speed rail. It is focused almost exclusively on climate. We are not seeing the other side interest. I think this goes in agriculture groups went along. We do not see that in this trip. People see this on the heels of President Trump withdrawing from the Paris records. One may think this is a showcase. What is this trip really say about California's place as an emerging international player. I think many years ago subnational's and the climate changed space would've been looked at in a sign that MO use. When they see Trump withdrawing in the United States there is a growing but even before Trump's election. Provinces and regions can play a bigger role in greenhouse gas reductions. I think there is some real movement there but. It is clearly an opportunity. On the other hand it's not like he had a deficit of legacy on climate for Trump made his announcement. If there is a gain I think it is incremental. Governor Brown has left for this trip. We need to have a budget signed and resolved. Is there any criticism he has received for making this trip at this time. I spoke with the speechwriter and asked about the possible political blowback. Jerry Brown's approval rating is so high in the state he could essentially go back and dance on tables for the week. He can come back and not have much political fallout. There is always the risk of timing when the governor goes abroad that a disaster could happen the budget could fall apart something in the week that would create a problem for him. At least three days in that is not happening and I just do not see -- for a politician to California to be [Indiscernible] can only be good for a Democrat in California. Is To have any information about how this trip is being perceived by the Trump administration? They gave an interview with the New York Times saying that Jerry Brown was being the aggressor. We have not seen tweets for the president at least not yet. I've been speaking with David Siders Senior reporter covering California with political thank you.
With President Donald Trump pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, China and California signed an agreement Tuesday to work together on reducing emissions, as the state's governor warned that "disaster still looms" without urgent action.
Gov. Jerry Brown told The Associated Press at an international clean energy conference in Beijing that Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement will ultimately prove only a temporary setback.
For now, he said, China, European countries and individual U.S. states will fill the gap left by the federal government's move to abdicate leadership on the issue.
"Nobody can stay on the sidelines. We can't afford any dropouts in the tremendous human challenge to make the transition to a sustainable future," Brown said. "Disaster still looms and we've got to make the turn."
Brown later held a closed-door meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which the two pledged to expand trade between California and China with an emphasis on so-called green technologies that could help address climate change, Brown said. Trump's announcement last week that he wants to pull out of the Paris accord did not come up, according to the governor.
"Xi spoke in very positive terms," Brown told reporters after the meeting. "I don't think there's any desire to get into verbal battles with President Trump."
Trump's decision drew heavy criticism within the U.S. and internationally, including in China, which swiftly recommitted itself to the agreement forged with the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama. Trump argued that the Paris agreement favors emerging economies such as China's and India's at the expense of U.S. workers.
Tuesday's agreement between California and China's Ministry of Science and Technology effectively sidestepped Trump's move, bringing about alignment on an issue of rising global importance between the world's second-largest economy — China — and California, whose economy is the largest of any U.S. state and the sixth largest in the world.
Brown signed similar collaboration agreements over the past several days with leaders in two Chinese provinces, Jiangsu and Sichuan.
Like the Paris accord, the deals are all nonbinding. They call for investments in low-carbon energy sources, cooperation on climate research and the commercialization of cleaner technologies. The agreements do not establish new emission reduction goals.
The U.S. has long been a major player in the clean energy arena, driving innovations in electric cars, renewable power and other sectors of the industry. California, with some of the strictest climate controls in the nation, has been at the forefront of the sector.
China in recent years overtook the U.S. as the world leader in renewable power development. But it has also struggled to integrate its sprawling wind and solar facilities into an electricity grid still dominated by coal-fueled power plants.
At the same time, Chinese leaders face growing public pressure at home to reduce the health-damaging smog that blankets many urban areas.
China is by far the world's largest user of coal, which accounts for almost two-thirds of its energy use and has made it the No. 1 emitter of climate-changing greenhouse gases.
Communist Party leaders pledged that greenhouse gas emissions will peak no later than 2030 under the Paris pact, and start to fall after then. They have canceled the planned construction of more than 100 new coal-fired power plants and plan to invest at least $360 billion in green-energy projects by the end of the decade. The nation's consumption of coal fell in 2016 for a third consecutive year, but rebounded slightly in 2017.
It could meet its 2030 target a decade early.
Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry also is attending this week's energy meeting in Beijing. Observers say delegates from other countries will be listening closely to the former Texas governor to gauge how Trump administration policies will shape global energy trends.
During a Tuesday forum devoted to capturing carbon dioxide emitted from coal plants and other large industrial sources, Perry said his agency was pursuing an "all of the above" strategy that includes research intended to spur innovation for coal, nuclear, renewables and other fuels. He left the event without taking questions.
Perry is from a state that is known for its oil production but that has also had significant renewables development. Texas has some of the largest wind farms in the country and a fast-expanding solar sector.
Such U.S. advances in renewables won't simply disappear under Trump, said David Sandalow, a former undersecretary of energy in the Obama administration now at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. Too many companies and states are heavily invested in the sector for that to happen, he said.
But a lack of government support for clean energy will cost the U.S. jobs, Sandalow added, with cuts to research programs that Trump has proposed being a sign of what's to come.
"It's backward looking and it's going to hurt the U.S.," he said. "The contrast with what's happening in China could not be more stark."
Interviewed Tuesday morning on American cable channel MSNBC, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt touted U.S. emissions reductions over past years and said that despite withdrawing from the Paris accord, the Trump administration would continue to engage others, particularly developing nations, on the effort.
"We have a strong, strong approach to reducing emissions. We have nothing to be apologetic about," Pruitt said. "America is not going to be disengaged, we are going to maintain engagement."
Trump is a strong advocate of boosting U.S. fossil fuel industries, in particular coal mining. Cheap natural gas and tighter pollution restrictions toppled coal from its dominant position in the U.S. power sector during Obama's tenure. Experts say it's unlikely to regain that position anytime soon, regardless of what Trump does.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Brown told attendees at a forum on electric vehicles that "there are still people in powerful places who are resisting reality."
Later, when asked by the AP what could prompt the U.S. to return to the forefront of climate change efforts, Brown replied, "Science, facts, the world, the marketplace."
