LOS ANGELES — Canada and Mexico’s environmental ministers went to San Francisco last month to sign a global pact — drafted largely by California — to lower planet-warming greenhouse pollution. Governor Jerry Brown flies to China next month to meet with leaders there on a campaign to curb global warming. And a battery of state lawyers is preparing to battle any attempt by Washington to weaken California’s automobile emission standards.
As President Trump moves to reverse the Barack Obama administration’s policies on climate change, California is emerging as the nation’s de facto negotiator with the world on the environment. The state is pushing back on everything from White House efforts to roll back pollution rules on tailpipes and smokestacks to plans to withdraw or weaken US commitments under the Paris climate change accord.
California is not only fighting to protect its legacy of sweeping environmental protection, but also holding itself out as a model to other states — and to nations — on how to fight climate change.
“I want to do everything we can to keep America on track, keep the world on track, and lead in all the ways California has,’’ said Brown, as he enters what is likely to be the final stretch of a 40-year career in California government.
California has stood as the leading edge of the Democratic resistance to the Trump administration, on issues including immigration and health care. Trump lost to Hillary Clinton here by nearly 4 million votes. Every statewide elected official is a Democrat, and the party controls both houses of the Legislature by a two-thirds margin. After Trump was elected, Democratic legislative leaders hired Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general, to represent California in legal fights with the administration.
But none have the global implications of the one over climate change.
The aggressive posture on the environment has set the stage for a confrontation between the Trump administration and the largest state in the nation. California has 39 million people, more than Canada. And with an annual economic output of $2.4 trillion, the state has the sixth-largest economy in the world.
California’s efforts cross party lines.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor from 2003 to 2011, led the state in developing the most aggressive pollution-control programs in the nation. He has emerged as one of Trump’s biggest Republican critics.
Trump and his advisers appear ready for the fight.
Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency chief, whom Trump has charged with rolling back Obama-era environmental policies, speaks often of his belief in the importance of federalism and states’ rights, describing Trump’s proposals as a way to lift the oppressive yoke of federal regulations and return authority to the states. But of Brown’s push to expand California’s environmental policies to the country and the world, Pruitt said, “That’s not federalism — that’s a political agenda hiding behind federalism.’’
“Is it federalism to impose your policy on other states?’’ Pruitt asked. “It seems to me that Mr. Brown is being the aggressor here.’’
Trump signed an order in March aimed at dismantling the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature climate policy change. Much of the plan, which Trump denounced as a “job killer,’’ was drawn from environmental policies pioneered in California.
Brown said the president’s action was “a colossal mistake and defies science.’’
“Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump’s mind, but nowhere else,’’ Brown said.
Even before Trump took office, California’s tough rules stirred concern among business leaders, who said they had increased their costs. “Washington will create a less competitive environment for California businesses here because businesses in other states will not have to meet the same mandates,’’ said Robert Lapsley, head of the California Business Roundtable. “There is no question that businesses are going to move out.’’
For now, the critical questions are whether the United States will withdraw from the Paris agreement to reduce greenhouse pollution, and whether the EPA will revoke a waiver issued by President Richard M. Nixon that permits California to set fuel-economy standards exceeding federal requirements — forcing the state to lower its tough fuel-economy standards, which are also intended to promote the rapid spread of electric cars.
Beyond pushing to maintain its state climate laws, California has tried to forge international climate pacts. Brown’s government helped draft and gather signatures for a memorandum of understanding whose signers, including heads of state and mayors from around the world, pledged to take actions to lower emissions enough to keep global temperatures from rising over 2 degrees Celsius. That is the point at which scientists say the planet will tip into a future of irreversible rising seas. That pact is voluntary, but California, Canada, and Mexico are starting to carry out a joint climate policy with some teeth.
In April, a delegation from California traveled to Beijing to meet with Chinese counterparts to help them craft a cap-and-trade plan.
The Clean Power Plan was central to the US pledge under the 2015 Paris agreement, which commits the nation to cut its emissions about 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. Now that Trump has moved to roll back the plan, it will be almost impossible for the United States to meet its Paris commitments. That has resonated powerfully in China. The heart of the Paris agreement was a 2014 deal forged by Obama and President Xi Jinping of China in which the world’s two largest economies and largest greenhouse polluters agreed to act jointly to reduce emissions.
