Governor Jerry Brown
September 2017
● https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/climate/climate-change-unga-governors.html
UNITED NATIONS — Jerry Brown, the governor of California, huddled on Sunday night with European, Brazilian and small-island leaders — gathered here for the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, which formally begins on Tuesday — and pledged to work with them on climate change. On Monday he met with António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, to discuss the future of the Paris agreement.
In another era, meetings like these might have been the exclusive domain of the State Department. But with the Trump administration vowing to leave the Paris agreement on climate change — affirmed on Monday by Gary D. Cohn, the chief White House economic adviser, at a meeting with allied ministers — Democratic state governors are taking an increasingly conspicuous role on the international stage, forming something of an informal negotiating team.
It is the first time that governors have taken such a prominent role on climate change at the annual General Assembly...
The goal, the governors say, is to assure other countries that they, along with and hundreds of cities and businesses, remain committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and meeting the goals of the Paris accord.
August 2017
Washington Post: Jerry Brown says Trump is fueling California’s climate push
“If anything, the Trump imperative going in the opposite direction is a stimulus,” Brown said in a recent interview with The Washington Post’s David Bruns. “It’s a goad, it’s a pressure. … In a way, it’s a rising of or raising of awareness that’s actually making my agenda stronger and more resonant with the people of California.”
During Brown’s more recent two terms, California has been a powerhouse in promoting the spread of electric cars and renewable energy, and the state recently extended its ambitious cap-and-trade program.
“The fact that Trump is the null hypothesis, he’s saying there is no climate change, it’s a hoax,” said Brown. “So that sets up an antinomy, a contradiction. And because of that what California is doing is more salient. People are paying attention. People are more concerned because now they see, oh what Trump is saying – that’s not right.”
“There are scientists who predicted that humanity will have a very hard time being around after the 21st century because not just of climate change but nuclear and other kinds of technologies that could get out of hand,” he said. “If we lack the morality, the wisdom and the collective self-restraint to manage what is becoming the aggregation of the most unimaginable power that any species has ever possessed.”
He depicted the decarbonization of the world economy as one of the greatest economic and technological challenges of our time.
“We’re going to radically transform the very basis of who and what we are,” he said. “That’s big. That’s what you say we’re facing a wall of inertia and to overcome that step by step takes clarity takes science takes technology and takes enlightened leadership and the ability and willingness of people to follow and to do what they have to do.”
July 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Governor's Press Office
Wednesday, July 12, 2017 -- (916) 445-4571
Jerry Brown / https://twitter.com/JerryBrownGov
I'm partnering with Michael Bloomberg on an important climate initiative to help keep America on track ...
California out in front in a Green future
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June, Time for a China Trade Visit, Time to Focus on the Future
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-jerry-brown-california-climate.html
- http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-green-cities-20170604-story.html
As Trump Steps Back, Jerry Brown Talks Climate Change in China
- By Javier Hernandez and Adam Nagourney / JUNE 6, 2017 / NY TIMES
Mr. Brown was in China on Tuesday, emerging as a de facto envoy from the United States on climate change at a time when President Trump has renounced efforts to battle global emissions. In a meeting packed with symbolism — and one that seemed at once to elevate the California governor and rebuke Mr. Trump — President Xi Jinping of China met with Mr. Brown, at the governor’s request, at the very moment China prepares to take a more commanding role in fighting climate change.
“California’s leading, China’s leading,” Mr. Brown said...
At such a volatile moment in Washington, the meeting allowed Mr. Xi to focus on the common ground China shares with some American politicians.
Gary Locke, a former American ambassador to China and governor of Washington, said Chinese leaders were “well aware” that Mr. Brown was considered a “strong leader” on climate change and a critic of Mr. Trump. Analysts said that Mr. Xi might have also wanted to show Mr. Trump that China was willing to work around him by strengthening ties with allies like Europe, India and California.
Mr. Brown... arrived just days before David H. Rank, the chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy in Beijing, resigned in protest of the president’s decision on the Paris agreement. Rick Perry, the energy secretary, was here as well for the energy conference, though he apparently did not meet with Mr. Xi...
Mr. Brown and other Democratic leaders of California have made clear that they would push ahead on the state’s leading-edge efforts to reduce all emissions no matter what happens in Washington.
Mr. Brown... said the lesson California had learned as it imposed limits on emissions was that it did not interfere with economic growth or cause hardship.
“Sacrifice is not a term that is that popular these days,” he said. “I think happy-time news is what people like from their politicians, even if the news can be a little more dire than that.”
“I don’t think we’re going to have to put on a hair shirt and eat bean sprouts,” Mr. Brown said. “I think we can have quite a rich life, but we’re going to have to get going and make the transition.”
California looks forward to the future, investment, environmental security, no 'bean sprouts'
● California / China / Development of Trade / Green Technology / Renewable Energy
2017
Governor Brown meets with President Xi of the People's Republic of China, signs agreement with national government to boost green technology
● Energy Innovation CEO Hal Harvey: "The reference point for China is not Washington, its California. They would rather learn from California than any other jurisdiction."
Both governments see big economic and environmental upsides to increased cooperation. California views China as a rising dynamic force, a valuable export market, a source of new investment, and an innovation collaborator. While in China last week, Governor Brown said, “China is leading. California is leading... California-China cooperation has taken a real leap forward.” Likewise, China considers California a trailblazer for the sustainable development path it aspires to follow.
California offers lessons as China works to build a cleaner, more innovative economy. The air pollution Chinese citizens endure today from increased industrial activity and sprawling personal automobile use is reminiscent of mid-20th century smog in southern California, which spurred the creation of the California Air Resources Board and dozens of subsequent policy innovations.
2016
2015
2014
2013
Governor Brown: "This year we will take another step to strengthen the ties between the world’s second and ninth largest economies."
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- California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a “colossal mistake” in gutting the federal government’s effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle.
- “It defies science itself,” Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States' leadership on global warming. “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump‘s mind, but nowhere else.”
- “Yes, there is going to be a counter-movement,” Brown vowed, predicting Trump’s actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. “I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a growing movement. President Trump’s outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force..."
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NBC "Meet the Press" / Gov. Jerry Brown to Trump: ‘You Don’t Want to Mess with California’
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State of the State Speech (transcript) -- January 24, 2017
Governor Brown: "California is Not Turning Back, Not Now, Not Ever"
- http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/jerry-brown-california-trump-alternative-facts-climate-immigration
- http://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2017/01/jerry-brown-warring-with-donald-trump-back-on-national-stage-108988
- http://ktla.com/2017/01/24/gov-brown-delivers-state-of-the-state-address/
- http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article128432759.html
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Jerry Brown speaks of Earth Science and "truth telling" - Dec. 2016
- The California Governor calls on scientists to accelerate their work
- as a newly elected president prepares to take office
- Watch the speech at YouTube:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MLHWFO6DwE (GreenPolicy)
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California, at Forefront of Climate Fight, Won’t Back Down to Trump'
- By Adam Nagourney LA Times/NY Times (who's been reporting on Jerry Brown for over two decades) and Henry Fountain (environmental writer/reporter at the NYT)
Jerry Brown: “California can make a significant contribution to advancing the cause of dealing with climate change, irrespective of what goes on in Washington,” Mr. Brown said in an interview. “I wouldn’t underestimate California’s resolve if everything moves in this extreme climate denial direction. Yes, we will take action.”
Democrats relish the prospect of challenging Mr. Trump on climate change, noting that other states have followed California in trying to curb emissions. And California has the weight to get into the ring: It is one of the 10 largest economies in the world, with a gross domestic product of approximately $2.5 trillion.
“California more than ever is strongly committed to moving forward on our climate leadership,” said Kevin de Leon, the leader of the State Senate. “We will not deviate from our leadership because of one election.”
Nagourney/Fountain:
Mr. Brown will be a critical player in this fight. He has presented himself as an environmental advocate since he first served as governor in the 1970s. As he enters what will probably be his last two years in public life, he has seized on the prospect of leading an anti-Trump environmental movement.
“We’ve got the lawyers and we’ve got the scientists and are ready to fight,” Mr. Brown declared in a speech in San Francisco earlier this month to the American Geophysical Union. “We’re ready to win.”
Mr. Brown, in our interview, called Mr. Trump’s election a setback for the climate movement, but predicted that it would be fleeting.
“In a paradoxical way, it could speed up the efforts of leaders in the world to take climate change seriously,” he said. “The shock of official congressional and presidential denial will reverberate through the world.”
Success of Jerry Brown, and California, Offers Lessons
Via the NY Times / By Adam Nagourney
(GreenPolicy Siterunner / SJS Note: In 1992, Adam Nagourney covered the Brown v Clinton presidential campaign. As an advisor to Brown, I had many opportunities to interact w/ Adam and react to his campaign news coverage for USA Today. Adam was an exceptional reporter in the early 90s, as he covered our "We the People" presidential campaign, and still is today in 2016 as he covers California politics as a NYT senior political reporter and Los Angeles Bureau Chief...)
SACRAMENTO — When Bernie Sanders held a rally at an outdoor stadium here the other night, more than 15,000 people turned out in a display of cheering, chanting, singing and cartwheels.
Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, was not there, but he might as well have been. Mr. Sanders’s speech was replete with the kind of to-the-barricades flourishes that have long been part of Mr. Brown’s campaign language. “The political establishment is getting nervous,” Mr. Sanders said. “The corporate establishment is getting nervous. And they should be nervous. Because real change is coming.”
As the Democratic presidential primary nears in California, it is easy to find in Mr. Sanders the kind of populist appeal that has long animated Mr. Brown, who ran for president in 1992 on a “We the People” pledge to accept no contribution over $100...
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April 2016 - Governor Brown Signs 'Fair Wage Act'
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Adam Nagourney's NY Times Magazine story on Jerry Brown (2011)
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From the 1970s, Jerry Brown's journey...
The last week of 2014, GreenPolicy360 highlighted the work of Pope Francis.
This week, the first week of 2015, we have highlighted the work of Edmund G. 'Jerry' Brown.
Perhaps it is fitting to move from a Jesuit pope on to a former Jesuit seminarian -- now 76 yrs old and Governor of California.
Via Politico: Jerry Brown slams climate skeptics as 'troglodytes' at Vatican conference
Speakers at the event highlighted the role mayors can play fighting climate change, given that half the world’s population now lives in cities, which are in turn responsible for nearly three quarters of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Brown spoke of California's environmental accomplishments as a template for mayors around the world to follow.
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California Out in Front in a Green Future
Newsweek: Brown has a Cassandric quality, a mixture of prescience and alarmism that was disconcerting when he was young but is soothing now that he is old and can say “I told you so” with an unthreatening demeanor. The best thing to say about Brown is also the worst thing to say about him, and it is the thing that has always been said about him: He is way ahead of his time.
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January 2016
Steve J. Schmidt / GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / excerpts from two January 2016 social media posts:
Speaking to the challenges to be faced by the Sander's campaign when negotiating w the Clinton campaign re: the "First 100 Days" of the next administration...
The Jerry Brown presidential campaign of 1992 -- A Focus on Opposition to Undue Influence of Money-in-Politics
SJS: >We're witnessing a presidential campaign of Senator Sanders with many core themes of the 1992 Jerry Brown campaign for president. In '92, I can look back to being an adv to Jerry and a collaborator w him on our platform. We spoke of money in politics and its 'undue influence' over most every critical element of policy -- from war and peace to health care. I worked my first campaign with Jerry in 1976 and have pushed green issues now as Jerry has for over 40 yrs... Time flies as the saying goes and it feels appropriate that California is still out in front in green politics and policy -- no more 'moonbeam' rap for Jerry. Mike Royko, who coined that term, long ago apologized as Calif w Jerry's vision and leadership continue to very much stay out in front of the modern envir movement. Too bad Jerry's not younger. He'd be a great president.
>Not to sound maudlin but Bernie Sanders does sound like our campaign in 1992 and our message and challenge to the Clinton campaign... what Sanders is saying about quid pro quo, w add-ons about Citizens United and Super PACs, is old, old news to me -- and there's not going to be much substantive change in DC as long as the pay-to-play, campaign finance/lobbying system as it is remains in place -- re pushing back money in politics reform proposals in '92, the reps of the Ds national org and Clinton campaign told me, and told me to tell the Brown campaign, that they weren't going to "unilaterally disarm" and they were moving to out raise and out do the Rs in the money game, and in many ways they have... it's about money in politics.... that's where policy comes from.
GreenPolicy's Siterunner w/ Gov Brown, 1992, @ Dem platform hearings
>Our 'We the People' platform spoke of political reform across a breadth of issues.... many green ideas we brought forward carry on in the founding US Green Party Platform, which your GreenPolicy siterunner was the key drafter, and Jerry and his ideas and agenda carried on in California. To this day, Governor Brown continues out in front with model green and progressive initiatives for change.
>Decades now, day-to-day, Jerry has been hard at work to make a difference and create, with vision, a better world.
>Here's a nod of our green hat to Jerry Brown -- a principled visionary
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The Brown Campaign Platform, a Foundation of Forward-Looking Ideas and Policies
- At the 1992 Platform hearings of the Democratic party, a turning point for the Democratic Party
- Presidential campaign announcement speech, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 1991
Campaigning in Michigan on workers issues, NAFTA-GATT, trade and jobs, industrial policy and electoral reform
"California feeds on change and great undertakings, Jerry Brown said in Monday's (January 5, 2014) swearing-in speech, "but the path of wisdom counsels us to ground ourselves and nurture carefully all we have started..."
January 5, 2015 Inauguration Speech (video)
Today the press reports -- California leads the nation in environmental policy and Jerry Brown's point of view? “What happens here doesn’t stay here. It goes all around the country and all around the world.”
California continues as a world leader in Clean Air/Emissions Control and Policies Addressing Climate Change - Governor Brown Establishes Most Ambitious Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target in North America: New California Goal Aims to Reduce Emissions 40 Percent Below 1990 Levels by 2030
The 'greening' results are showing... Transportation High Speed" -- Energy -- Climate Change -- working with Arnold who added real environmental Muscle
- Out in Front on Climate Change, California Out in Front with Eco-nomic Policy
Governor Brown signs aggressive climate change bill
LOS ANGELES (AP) / October 7, 2015 — Gov. Jerry Brown dramatically increased California's climate-change goals on Wednesday, committing the state to use renewable energy for half its electricity and make existing buildings twice as energy-efficient in just 15 years.
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California is about to do something no state has done / Sept 2015
Back in January, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) made a promise. His state, he said, would pursue a new package of climate goals that are the most ambitious in the nation (and among the most ambitious in the world). California was already a leader in efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy. Brown pledged to go further. By 2030, he declared, California would double the energy efficiency of state buildings; get half its electricity from renewables; and halve consumption of gasoline by cars and trucks.
At the time, all those nice-sounding goals were just words in a speech. But they could very soon become the law of the land. The state legislature is currently considering several bills (SB 350 is the most important) that would codify Brown's climate agenda. The legislation is widely expected to pass before the end of the legislative session next Friday, but not without a fight from the state's powerful oil lobby...
Today Los Angeles has ten times as many cars as it did in the 50s, and the air is 95 percent cleaner. That’s a pretty dramatic move, one that countries like China and India are taking notice of.
So we’ve had that history. As far as people’s attitudes I would say that there is a strong preference for favoring policies that nurture the environment as oppose to those that disrupt them.
But if you dig deeper into the use of things or creature comforts, I don’t think we’ve attained the level of enlightenment that Pope Francis is calling for.
Catholicism, Zen, and Jerry Brown
The notion of subsidiarity, that decisions are best made closest to the people, is Catholic. So too is his disregard for the omnipotence of government, and the belief that change must emanate from within...
Jerry Brown’s time with Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta
America Magazine | July 2015
California Governor Jerry Brown has spent his entire life in public service. After college Brown spent a few years as a Jesuit seminarian. He has spent the 45 years since serving the state of California at every level, from Los Angeles community college district trustee to mayor of Oakland, state Attorney General, governor, candidate for Senate twice, and candidate for the presidency three times. In his 1992 run he carried six states, and came in second in voting at the Democratic convention to Bill Clinton...
I think it definitely advances the church’s position on the environment. The pope made a very clear articulation of the responsibility and the respect that human beings owe the rest of creation. And he’s taking on a real existential threat to the underlying conditions on which our civilization is dependent, the stability of the climate, which has been very favorable for the last 10 to 12 thousand years. So it’s important for reorienting Catholics to the rules and the laws of nature that can’t be ignored or abused in the name of individual freedom or desire or initiative. As people work out their various ways of living they have to take into account not just what they want to do, but what nature dictates and what science tells us about the way human beings are enmeshed in and dependent on a greater and complex web of life.
The pope is also raising the point, which gets serious opposition from many quarters, of how much material stuff is really appropriate, that there are certain limits and certain ways of living and industrializing and carrying on that are more compatible with a sustainable and healthy environment. The encyclical raises a real challenge to a modern world that is so dependent on the market for authority and for the allocation of life’s goods and services. The pope is raising the ante, saying No, you have to look at the impact. When you’re disturbing the environment you’re going to create negative feedbacks that are going to be felt disproportionately by poorer people, more vulnerable people who don’t have the assets and the capital to protect themselves against the extreme weather and the disruptions that follow in the wake of an impaired climate regime, which is where we’re going.
So all in all I’d say it’s a welcome voice, a clear voice that definitely lays out ideas consistent with the Catholic tradition but also very related to the times that we’re in...
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SJS: California has this history that really derives from the experience of smog in the Los Angeles Basin, and the response to that over many administrations has led to where we are today. As a matter of fact the standards that were established under the so-called Pavley Law, the first legislation in the world to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in passenger vehicles, were ultimately adopted by the United States as the national standard. [1] [2]
2016 Update:
Following on Social Media - https://twitter.com/GovPressOffice
One State Acts Again on Climate Change Policy - http://markets.cbsnews.com/California-lawmakers-advance-aggressive-climate-change-plans/4c1a1cdb43da904b/
Pacific Coast Regional Leadership - http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Pacific_Coast_Climate_Action_Plan.pdf
- Confronting Historic Drought-Climate Change
April 2015 -- Brown orders California's first mandatory water restrictions: 'It's a different world'
Standing in a brown field that would normally be smothered in several feet of snow, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered cities and towns across California to cut water use by 25% as part of a sweeping set of mandatory drought restrictions, the first in state history.
http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18910
PBS Interview - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/gov-jerry-brown-california-change-whats-comfortable-address-drought/
January 2015
Who would want to be Governor of California? (CBS Video)
Challenge and Best Practice Solutions...
In his re-election victory speech Tuesday night, Brown mentioned Props 1 and 2 as being vital to his goals as governor.
"Save money, save water, those are two pillars," Brown said.
November 2014 - the State of California under the leadership of its green governor, Jerry Brown, passed a set of laws, with Proposition One at the center of a wide-ranging plan to encourage a range of water conservation usage and saving measures, California again out in front of national/global efforts to deal with climate change/drought.
Having led the effort to shape and urge passage of a top state priority in the 2014 election, the Governor succeeded as voters passed Proposition 1 – the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Act of 2014 – by a margin of 67%-33%.
Proposition 1 provides $7.5 billion in new and redirected bond funds for a wide range of water related projects that will:
• Protect rivers, lakes, streams, coastal waters and watersheds • Provide regional water security, climate and drought preparedness • Provide public benefits through a wide range of water storage options that demonstrate improvement to the state water system, cost-effectiveness and net improvement in ecosystem and water quality conditions • Promote water recycling • Improve drinking water quality • Provide increased flood protection
California Launches Program to Protect Farmland & Climate
The California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN)is a coalition that advances sustainable policies to support California agriculture in the face of climate change. http://calclimateag.org/about/
The goal is to "integrate funding for permanent agricultural easements with urban land use projects to maximize the gains in reducing greenhouse gases linked to vehicle miles traveled and urban development. This is the first program in the country that invests in farmland conservation for its climate benefits."
Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Guidelines
