SÃO PAULO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t even on the United Nations local weather talks but — however he’s already getting bombarded with assembly requests.
Newsom kicked off his journey to Brazil 1,800 miles south of the Amazonian metropolis of Belém that’s internet hosting this 12 months’s worldwide gathering, speaking to Brazilian and American financiers at an buyers’ summit in São Paulo.
His first query from the Brazilian press on Monday, contemporary off final week’s redistricting victory: whether or not he would run for president (“Nothing else issues however 2026 and taking again the Home of Representatives,” he stated).
Newsom couldn’t stroll midway down a hallway with out fielding a gathering request from CEOs and NGOs — or a selfie request. One Brazilian picture-taker had him repeat the Portuguese phrase for “Let’s go”: “Vamos.”
His remarks to buyers on the Milken International Traders’ Symposium sounded extra like a marketing campaign rally than a enterprise speech.
“Now we have seen this whole reversal of a lot of the progress that the Biden administration made,” he stated. “What Trump is doing is unprecedented in American historical past … This shouldn’t be by way of the lens or prism of crimson, in American vernacular, versus blue.”
Then he held an hour-long roundtable assembly with representatives from main funding funds, philanthropies, improvement banks and power leaders, who he stated pushed him to bolster financial ties in present voluntary agreements with Brazilian governments.
Newsom informed POLITICO he and his staff have been getting a “disproportionate variety of calls” to satisfy on the sidelines of the talks, the place the U.S. authorities’s delegation numbers zero (“not even a observe taker,” Newsom stated.)
“We’re at peak affect due to the flatness of the encompassing terrain with the Trump administration and all of the nervousness,” Newsom stated in an interview in São Paulo.
Newsom is enjoying a well-rehearsed function for California, which has staked out a number one function in worldwide local weather diplomacy for many years below each Democratic and Republican governors, together with throughout Trump’s first time period. The Trump administration’s dismantling of local weather insurance policies to favor oil and gasoline pursuits solely give California more room to fill, stated former Gov. Jerry Brown, who obtained a hero’s welcome himself on the United Nations local weather talks in 2017, the primary 12 months of Trump 1.0.
“Trump, he’s saying one factor,” Brown stated in an interview. “Newsom is saying one thing else, essential.” The influence, he stated, will probably be decided in Belém. “That’s why it’s thrilling. There’s not a solution but.”
That provides Newsom a gap — and a threat. The place Brown led a coalition of states desperate to exhibit continued dedication on local weather in Trump’s first time period, Newsom will arrive in Belém, close to the mouth of the Amazon River, at a time when U.S. politics are tilting rightward and even Democrats are pulling again on embracing local weather insurance policies.
And there’s little Newsom’s staff, which incorporates ex-State Division local weather negotiators, can really do within the closed-door talks reserved for international locations. However the governor’s objective is to affect from simply outdoors the door.
“We’re in each room, as a result of California has been the inspiration for lots of those jurisdictions,” he informed POLITICO.
Newsom’s heading subsequent to Belém, the place he’s scheduled to satisfy with different subnational leaders and renew environmental pacts with different international locations and states — beginning on Tuesday with the surroundings ministers from Germany and the German state of Baden-Württemburg, which Brown first partnered with to advertise the gentle energy of subnational governments throughout Trump’s first time period. Newsom stated he would additionally meet with representatives from Chile. He’s additionally anticipated to present plenary remarks on the UN.
After that, he’ll head deeper into the Amazon rainforest to satisfy with Indigenous communities on conservation — one of many targets of the Brazilian organizers of the local weather talks. Newsom stated he noticed the go to to the Amazon as a religious alternative.
“It connects us to our creator,” he stated. “It connects us to 1000’s and 1000’s of generations.”