The Star Editorial Board has long supported the efforts of California to lead the globe in adoption of policies to reverse the man-made impacts on climate change. Many of those were led by our own local legislator, now-retired Sen. Fran Pavley of Agoura Hills.
We remain committed to those goals despite the about-face on policy by the Trump administration. We support the move by Gov. Jerry Brown to lead the challenge against those changes, and to continue to join with other states and other nations to address this issue before it is too late.
President Trump fulfilled his campaign promise and then did more with his ill-conceived order to abandon the Clean Power Plan. His plan, he said at the time of the signing of the executive order, was to restore coal mining and coal-fired plants as a dominate energy source. “You’re going back to work,” the president told the miners he invited to the Oval Office for the event.
Once again, the president has ignored solid evidence and walked away from our position as a global leader to pander to a small audience with a narrow self-interest.
The world has made great strides in the last decade in shifting from a fossil-fuel-based energy society into a cleaner energy focus that has stimulated the economy through the creation of new categories of jobs while meeting our energy needs without pollution. Even if you put your fingers in your ears and close your eyes and stomp your feet so you shut out the evidence that man continues to be the major factor in increasing global warming, you cannot ignore those positive impacts of shifts to cleaner sources of fuel.
The Trump signature on another executive order does not overnight change the regulations underpinning our national climate change policies. That, legal experts say, will take years to carry out and will undoubtedly face legal challenges that will slow the process even further.
In the meantime, Gov. Brown is committed to keeping California on target to meet its climate change goals. He also is committed to stepping into the role to help preserve our national position as a leader in the fight to reduce emissions.
The governor went to Paris for the final round of talks leading up to the signing of the historic agreement and drew the attention of officials from throughout the world for his focus on this problem. That message, first pushed through the Legislature by Sen. Pavley, and now championed by the governor, has been sown throughout the U.S.
Washington state and Oregon, for instance, are engaged in detailed talks on how to bring their energy policies closer to California. Across the nation in New England, some states are talking about joining forces to limit power plant emissions through carbon trading programs.
And world leaders who have dragged their heels on this issue have also stepped up to advocate the type of change that President Trump is trying to get the U.S. to ignore.
India is now onboard. A critical piece of the 2015 Paris agreement that now binds nearly every nation to take action to reduce emissions was the deal struck between President Obama and China’s president, Xi Jinping, to jointly cut their emissions. Xi, who will meet with President Trump this week, said in January that “all signatories (to the Paris accord) should stick to it instead of walking away from it, as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations.” We agree with the Chinese president.
As President Trump has shown he is far more interested in today than tomorrow, we see Gov. Brown and other state leaders like New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo assuming the mantle to show the world that the United States, and its people, remain committed to this goal, even if their president has abandoned it.
In his statement, President Trump said, “We are returning power to the states, where the power belongs. … They are the ones we should now — and will now — empower to decide.”
That is OK with us. We are comfortable in California deciding what is best for Californians, and showing other states and the world that we can continue to grow our economy without killing our environment.
