At a moment when the United States is again turning inward on climate policy, California is looking outward.
On a gray winter morning in Munich, Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped onto the stage of the Munich Security Conference, a forum more commonly associated with war, NATO strategy and geopolitical brinkmanship than with carbon pricing or zero-emission vehicles. The panel was titled “Playing With Fire: The Need for Decisive Climate Action,” and its framing was deliberate: climate change not as an environmental sideline, but as a security threat.
As President Donald Trump renews efforts to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement and recalibrate traditional alliances, Newsom arrived in Germany with a different message. California, he said, intends to remain engaged.
“While Donald Trump continues to demonstrate that he is unstable and unreliable, California is leaning in on the partnerships that make California stronger, Americans safer, and our planet healthier,” Newsom said. “Growth and security depend on democratic values, credibility, and climate action. California delivers all three.”
The Munich Security Conference has long been the world’s premier gathering for debating international security policy. That a U.S. governor — rather than a federal official — would seek to occupy that space illustrates a shift that has been unfolding for nearly a decade: in the absence of consistent federal leadership on climate, subnational governments have begun to conduct their own version of diplomacy.
Newsom’s day in Munich was structured less like a ceremonial visit and more like a trade mission layered with geopolitical symbolism. He met with Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister and former prime minister, to expand on a 2025 memorandum of understanding between California and Denmark focused on the green economy, digital safety and innovation.
He then sat down with Carsten Schneider, Germany’s federal minister for the environment, climate action, nature conservation and nuclear safety, to discuss renewable technologies and economic growth.
Later, he met Wopke Hoekstra, the European commissioner for climate, net zero and clean growth, to talk about zero-emission vehicles and California’s Cap-and-Invest carbon pricing system.
The choreography was unmistakable. As Washington signals retreat, Sacramento seeks relevance.
On the conference’s main stage, Newsom joined Ralph Regenvanu of Vanuatu, Lídia Pereira of the European Parliament and Andrew Forrest, the executive chairman of Fortescue, in a conversation moderated by Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua. The topic was climate finance, geopolitical instability and whether subnational actors can preserve international cooperation when national governments falter.
California officials argue that they can. The state cannot formally bind itself to the Paris Agreement — that authority rests with the federal government — but it can pursue policies aligned with the agreement’s temperature goals and build networks that function in parallel to federal diplomacy.
When Trump first withdrew from Paris in 2017, California co-founded the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition that now includes 24 governors representing roughly 60 percent of the American economy. Newsom now co-chairs the group. The alliance’s premise is that states can continue to meet emission targets regardless of federal participation.
Beyond domestic alliances, California has quietly built what it describes as the largest network of subnational climate cooperation in the world. It is a co-founder of the Under2 Coalition, a group of more than 270 governments committed to limiting global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius.
It joined the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance in 2021, signaling support for a gradual transition away from fossil fuel production. At COP28 in Dubai, California launched the Subnational Methane Action Coalition to curb methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for nearly a third of current warming.
The agreements stretch across continents: Brazil, Denmark and Kenya in 2025; Noord-Holland in the Netherlands in 2024; Australia and British Columbia in 2023; and multiple Chinese provinces and municipalities. California also maintains partnerships with Baja California and Sonora in Mexico, focusing on zero-emission freight corridors and clean manufacturing.
These are memorandums of understanding, not treaties. They lack the binding force of federal agreements. Yet they carry practical consequences, shaping regulatory standards, aligning markets and signaling long-term policy stability to investors.
California’s argument for credibility rests partly on its numbers. Since 2000, state greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 21 percent, even as gross domestic product has risen 81 percent.
In 2023, two-thirds of California’s electricity came from clean sources, the state says, making it the largest economy in the world to reach that threshold. Battery storage capacity has expanded more than twentyfold under Newsom, reaching nearly 17,000 megawatts.
For foreign officials wary of the oscillation of American federal policy, those metrics are meant to offer reassurance.
Still, California’s climate diplomacy exists within constitutional limits. States cannot negotiate trade deals or bind the nation to international accords. And critics argue that the symbolism can outpace the substance — that memorandums may overpromise while implementation depends on domestic politics and funding.
In Munich, though, the symbolism mattered. The conference has historically served as a barometer of Western cohesion. This year, with transatlantic tensions simmering and global climate negotiations fragile, the presence of a U.S. governor attempting to fill a perceived vacuum carried its own message.
It suggested that in a fractured era, American influence may flow not only from Washington, but from state capitals — and that climate policy, once treated as a niche portfolio, has become inseparable from economic strategy and national security.
For Newsom, who has increasingly positioned himself on the global stage, the trip also reinforces a broader narrative: that California is both laboratory and ambassador, projecting a model of economic growth decoupled from rising emissions.
Whether that model can withstand the political turbulence at home remains an open question. But in Munich, as presidents and prime ministers debated security and sovereignty, California made the case that climate — and credibility — are now part of the same conversation.
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Whatever happened to Newsom’s plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars (by 2035)?
Did that end up like his plan to force housing?
It’s widely reported that electric vehicle sales are in the toilet, so to speak.
As for me (personally), I’ll probably still be driving my greenhouse gas-emitting, 30 year old vehicles for the rest of my life. At which point they’ll probably be 60 years old.
Give me a good old, non-tech 4 or 6 cylinder – simple and reliable. I don’t need a car that’s “smarter” than I am (unless it can drive itself).
Unfortunately, simple/basic vehicles with adequate-sized engines are no longer being manufactured.
Given that you’ve stated you intend to continue driving older gas-powered vehicles and oppose EV transition policies, why should we take your critiques of housing density and sprawl as environmentally grounded?
To put it simply – if we’re going to continue to allow sprawl, I’d ask why I should sacrifice to support it. (Same question I ask when I’m told there’s a drought, which is the reason I sometimes suggest to “flush twice” in a semi-humorous manner.
But there’s other reasons, as well. It’s generally less environmentally-impactful to keep older vehicles running, if one doesn’t drive much for example. Manufacturing new vehicles (including electric vehicles) creates greenhouse gasses itself, as does mining the materials needed to create them.
If I had to buy a new vehicle, I’d consider a hybrid. But even then, you’re creating something that contains poisonous components such as batteries that will eventually need to be disposed.
This is also related to the reason that I thought that the state’s “cash for junk cars” a few years ago was misguided.
Then there’s the fact that the creation of electricity itself is often not from renewable sources, etc.
The other reason is that older vehicles are more simple and less-expensive to repair.
But perhaps the biggest reason (overall) that I don’t take this seriously is because it’s a global problem. And if I personally burn one less gallon of gas, what’s to keep someone in China or India from burning that gallon, instead of me personally?
Truth be told, I’m pretty sure that humans are going to burn every gallon of gas that they can get their hands on with relative ease. Perhaps we should just “get that over” with now.
Also, climate change is not the only problem. In fact, it’s a symptom of modern society and population – not a separate issue.
Another issue (not necessarily related to vehicles) is that battery-powered devices are still inferior to gas powered devices.
I have a 30 year old gas-powered lawnmower that cost me about $200 at the time, and I noticed that the price didn’t increase much for years afterward. Still going strong, no hassles, no charging, no battery replacement, no repairs. Can’t buy those in California anymore, I understand.
I’ve had to toss out some battery-powered devices since then.
Another “environmental savior” issue is the alcohol they put in gas these days, necessitating the use of poisonous gas treatment additives to keep the fuel “fresh” if stored over a winter, etc.
I know someone who bought an electric “skid loader” (tractor) and received a significant rebate from the government as a result. But the thing was always giving him trouble (so much so that he got rid of it pretty quickly). Last I heard, he was planning to buy a good old-fashioned diesel skid loader, instead.
I doubt that construction crews (e.g., at Village Farms) would be using electric tractors when they move tons of dirt from the dig pit onto the rest of the property, to raise its height. (Assuming that voters approve it in the first place.)
“To put it simply – if we’re going to continue to allow sprawl, I’d ask why I should sacrifice to support it.”
That suggests that you oppose sprawl for its own sake rather than out of some notion of environmental concern?
No – I already noted that sprawl is what causes global warming.
Population and modern society create greenhouse gasses. So unless that’s taken seriously, why would I want to “save gas” in order to support continued expansion of the underlying cause?
Again, this is why I jokingly say “flush twice”.
I don’t feel particularly cooperative in regard to going along with that “plan”. You can’t ask the populace to conserve their way toward environmental salvation, if there’s no attempt to address the very first step. (And in fact, the government is encouraging the “opposite” regarding that first step.)
But greenhouse gasses are also not the only environmental problem caused by population and modern society. It’s not the greenhouse gasses themselves – it’s a combination of population and modern society.
If we had half the number of drivers we have right now, we could all be driving Hummers without increasing greenhouse gasses more than we already are.
” I already noted that sprawl is what causes global warming.”
I’ll let someone else have at this point.
Sprawl is one cause, but it’s ultimately (also) a symptom of failing to address the underlying cause (a societal goal of never-ending growth).
The goal itself has to change. Otherwise, there is no point in trying to conserve gas, water, etc. – other than to allow more growth.
It’s ultimately simple math. If we use half the amount of gas per capita, but double the population – what have we “gained”? And more importantly – what have we lost (e.g., 2 minute showers using low-flow faucets, toilets that literally “require” a double flush, expensive vehicles, more traffic, less farmland, less habitat, appliances that don’t work as well as the older ones, extreme density, no yards, etc.).
Fortunately, “1.6 kids” these days, despite the vested interests which don’t like that number.