UPDATED: Governor Brown to Discuss California’s Climate Leadership with Former Vice President Al Gore Tonight, Keynote Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Symposium in Chicago on Monday

Published:

Please note: Out of solidarity with the French people and the City of Paris, the Climate Reality Project has suspended this evening’s broadcast, including the discussion between Governor Brown and Former Vice President Al Gore.

SACRAMENTO – Just weeks before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris kicks off, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. will join former Vice President Al Gore this evening to discuss California’s climate leadership during the Climate Reality Project’s live global broadcast of “24 Hours of Reality and Live Earth: The World Is Watching.” On Monday in Chicago, Illinois, Governor Brown will deliver keynote remarks at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ 6th Annual Clock Symposium, named after the iconic Doomsday Clock which represents a metaphorical countdown to possible global catastrophe.

“It’s time we acknowledge that a changing climate poses the same existential threat to life on this planet as the current nuclear arms race,” said Governor Brown.

24 Hours of Reality and Live Earth: The World Is Watching – Satellite Interview with Al Gore
This around-the-clock program will unite a global audience in demanding a strong climate agreement in Paris and includes presentations and performances from leading climate experts and activists and award-winning celebrities and musicians.

When:
Today, Friday, November 13, 2015 at 6:55 p.m. PST
Broadcast: For more information on the event and to find out how to watch the broadcast where you live or on your mobile device, visit: www.24hoursofreality.org.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Symposium
The symposium is named after the Bulletin’s iconic Doomsday Clock, created by the artist Martyl Langsdorf for the Bulletin’s June 1947 magazine cover. The Clock represents a metaphorical countdown to possible global catastrophe. Citing “climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals” as “extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity,” the Clock was moved from 5 minutes to 3 minutes to midnight in 2015. The annual Clock Symposium brings together leading experts to help craft strategies to help push the hands of the Clock away from midnight.

When: Monday, November 16, 2015 at approx. 1:45 p.m. CST
Where: University of Chicago William Eckhardt Research Center, 5640 S Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637

**NOTE: For information on media coverage, reporters should contact Janice Sinclaire at jsinclaire@thebulletin.org or 707-481-9372. Additional information on the symposium can be found here.

California’s Leadership on Climate Change

As the clock ticks for national governments to reach a deal to reduce harmful emissions ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Governor Brown continues to focus on building and broadening collaboration amongst cities, states and provinces at the “subnational level.”

The Governor has also spearheaded a global pact amongst cities, states and countries, called the Under 2 MOU, to limit the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius – the warming threshold at which scientists say there will likely be catastrophic climate disruptions. To date, a total of 52 jurisdictions representing 19 countries and five continents have signed or endorsed the Under 2 MOU, collectively representing over $14.8 trillion in GDP and more than 520 million people.

Governor Brown also recently joined an unprecedented alliance of heads of state, city and state leaders – convened by the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund – to urge countries and companies around the globe to put a price on carbon. The “Carbon Pricing Panel” includes: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, French President François Hollande, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes.

In recent months the Governor has traveled to the United Nations in New York, the Vatican in Italy and the Climate Summit of the Americas in Toronto, Canada to call on others leaders to join California in the fight against climate change.

These efforts build on a number of other international climate change agreements with leaders from Mexico, China, North America, Japan, Israel, Peru and Chile. Governor Brown also helped convene hundreds of world-renowned researchers and scientists to issue a groundbreaking call to action – called the consensus statement – which translates key scientific climate findings from disparate fields into one unified document.

Last month, Governor Brown signed landmark legislation – SB 350 – that codified the goals he laid out in his January 2015 inaugural address to double the rate of energy efficiency savings in California buildings and generate half of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030. In the same remarks, Governor Brown also committed to reduce today’s petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50 percent within the next 15 years; make heating fuels cleaner; reduce the release of methane, black carbon and other potent pollutants across industries; and manage farm and rangelands, forests and wetlands so they can store carbon.

The impacts of climate change are already being felt in California and will disproportionately impact the state’s most vulnerable populations.

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