Governor Brown Meets with Spain’s Prime Minister in Sacramento

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SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today met with Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez in Sacramento, where the two leaders discussed further bilateral trade and climate cooperation and action between California and Spain.

“California and Spain share common history and a common commitment to climate action. We will get it done together,” said Governor Brown.

Governor Brown and Prime Minister Sánchez.

Governor Brown meets with Prime Minister Sánchez.

“The moment is now. We are the last generation that can stop the consequences of climate change,” said Prime Minister Sánchez.

Today’s meeting between Governor Brown and Prime Minister Sánchez included Spain’s Ambassador to the United States Santiago Cabanas, Secretary General of International Affairs José Manuel Albares and Director General of Economic Affairs Manuel De La Rocha and builds on this week’s events and meetings in New York with world leaders at Climate Week NYC and the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit.

California’s Leadership on Climate Change

Reaffirming California’s global climate leadership, Governor Brown convened the Global Climate Action Summit earlier this month in San Francisco, where grassroots activists, mayors, governors, heads of industry and nonprofits made hundreds of new commitments ahead of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24). This month, the Governor also signed legislation setting a 100 percent clean electricity goal for the state, and issued an executive order establishing a new target to achieve carbon neutrality – both by 2045. Additionally, the Governor signed bills to block new federal offshore oil drilling along California’s coast, announced the state’s opposition to the federal government’s plan to expand oil drilling on public lands in California and committed to developing and eventually launching a satellite that will track climate change-causing pollutants with unprecedented precision and help the world dramatically reduce these destructive emissions.

Earlier this year Governor Brown issued executive orders to improve the health of the state’s forests and help mitigate the threat and impacts of wildfire, and get 5 million zero-emission vehicles onto California’s roads by 2030. Last year, the Governor signed landmark legislation to extend and strengthen the state’s cap-and-trade program and create a groundbreaking program to measure and combat air pollution at the neighborhood level.

Under Governor Brown, California has established the most ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in North America; set the nation’s toughest restrictions on destructive super pollutants; and will reduce fossil fuel consumption up to 50 percent  and double the rate of energy efficiency savings in buildings by 2030. The state has met its 2020 target four years early, reducing emissions 13 percent while growing the economy 26 percent. From 2015 to 2016 alone, emissions reductions were roughly equal to taking 2.4 million cars off the road, saving 1.5 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel.

In addition, Governor Brown has helped establish and expand coalitions of partners across the nation and globe committed to curbing carbon pollution, including the Under2 Coalition, an international pact of 222 cities, states, regions and countries on 6 continents committed to limiting the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius. Coalition members collectively represent more than 1.3 billion people and $34 trillion in GDP – equivalent to 17 percent of the global population and 43 percent of the global economy. This includes the regions of Andalusia, Basque Country, Catalonia and Navarra in Spain. Governor Brown also partnered with Michael Bloomberg to launch America’s Pledge, an initiative to quantify non-federal action in the U.S. to drive down emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement, and helped form the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance – which now includes 17 U.S. states representing 40 percent of the U.S. population – committed to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and meeting or exceeding the targets of the federal Clean Power Plan.

California and 17 other states collectively representing more than 40 percent of the U.S. car market sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year to preserve the nation’s uniform vehicle emission standards that save drivers money at the pump, cut oil consumption, reduce air pollution and curb greenhouse gases.

Photo credit: Joe McHugh, California Highway Patrol. For high-resolution copies of these photos, contact Rishi Khalsa at Rishi.Khalsa@gov.ca.gov.

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