We’re not exactly shocked when politicians do political things, but Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t even try to hide the transparent goals of his recent trip to Brazil to attend a United Nations climate conference. Newsom is setting himself up for a likely run for the presidency, and has positioned himself as a foil to the GOP president. He’s been successful so far, as his combative social-media taunts of Donald Trump and Proposition 50 redistricting victory make clear.
“As Donald Trump abandons America’s allies and dismantles federal climate leadership, Governor Newsom is filling the void — advancing California as a global climate leader through new partnerships with Brazil, Colombia and Chile,” according to a statement on Newsom’s official website. It’s about highlighting national climate-change policy given that these partnerships with South American and other countries won’t achieve much in actual policy terms
How could they lead to anything substantive? Politico pointed out the obvious: “[A]s a governor, he has one glaring weakness: He can’t sign treaties with other countries.” Newsom’s weeklong accomplishments — “signing voluntary agreements, joint statements and other pointedly nonbinding memorandums of understanding” — are much ado about very little.
In a recent statement, Newsom touted his “historic climate action,” but the specifics are meh (even if the photography of the governor in the Amazon rain forest was fetching). Newsom signed a memorandum of understanding with Chile to improve information exchanges regarding methane production. He signed a declaration of intent with Brazil to do something or other about biodiversity. He inked a deal with Nigeria to promote “sustainable urban transportation” and other nebulous goals.
We doubt anyone is paying too much attention to the details of these signings. The real interest comes in the back and forth between Newsom and Trump. The governor called the administration’s pullback from the Paris climate accord “an abomination.” Meanwhile, a White House spokesperson slammed Newsom for flying “all the way to Brazil to tout the Green New Scam, while Californians are paying some of the highest energy prices in the country.”
The latter point touches on our main beef with California’s climate agenda: It is piling costs on California consumers to achieve little practical gain. The state has the highest gas prices in the nation, driven by the state’s climate-change policies that, in part, require a special fuels formulation that makes us an energy island and limits our ability to import gas from other states. We have among the highest electricity rates and a grid that’s struggling to keep up with demand, especially with the growth in Artificial Intelligence-related data centers.
According to a study this year from the Pacific Research Institute, “California households will bear significant costs, estimated to be between $17,398 and $20,182 per household, to fund the state’s transition to alternative energy sources between 2025 and 2050.” The state’s taxpayer-funded climate agenda is costly, too, with a price tag approaching $50 billion.
Oil refineries also are leaving the state. They are reluctant to invest in new capacity given California’s policy of eliminating fossil-fuel industries. Even though Newsom has backtracked somewhat on that policy, he is going to have a hard time selling California’s climate-change agenda to a national audience once Americans start focusing more on its costs and less on its rhetorical rebuke of Trump.