AP Interview: Newsom says Trump climate-fighting absence is ‘doubling down on stupid’

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BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Calling America’s absence from key United Nations climate negotiations “doubling down on stupid,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday the United States risks being left behind as an economic power.

Newsom, a Democrat eyeing a 2028 presidential run, is so far the highest profile of several U.S. governors and mayors at U.N. climate talks being hosted in Belem, Brazil. They say they are here to tell the 195 nations who are trying to fight climate change that much of the United States is doing its best despite Trump administration policies overturning environmental regulations and aiding the production of dirty fuels, such as coal, while stymying green energies like wind and solar.

As he did during his first term, President Donald Trump is also pulling America from the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set international goals to limit average global temperature rise.

Newsom’s presence as governor of the most populous U.S. state serves to draw a clear contrast with Trump’s absence. He said Trump’s decision to skip the talks tells the world: “You don’t matter, we don’t care.”

“This idea that somehow we can put up walls, we can put up barriers, we could put up tariffs, we put up our middle fingers and just turn our back is lunacy,” Newsom said during an exclusive Associated Press interview at the climate talks in Belem, a city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. “And every other country in the world understands that. That’s why every other country in this world is moving in a different direction.”

Green energy transition and China’s dominance

Even Russia and Saudi Arabia get it and are going green, but not Trump, Newsom said. U.N. organizers said only four nations are absent from the negotiations called COP30: Strife-torn Afghanistan and Myanmar, tiny San Marino and the United States, which over the century has put more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air than any other nation.

California, with nearly 40 million residents, is a major economic hub and on the forefront of national climate policy. But the Trump administration has sought to roll back the state’s power to set aggressive climate policy, most notably by blocking a California regulation to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars within the next decade.

“This Trump administration, his acolytes and the supine Congress led by Speaker (Mike) Johnson, are doubling down on stupid,” Newsom said.

“We’re ceding cheap energy, green energy, infrastructure, supply chain manufacturing. We’re ceding economic power to other countries, notably China, taking advantage of that absence,” Newsom said. “And they’re going to clean our clock economically unless we wake up to the economic imperative and opportunities of low carbon regrowth.”

Trump, who actively solicited money from the fossil fuel industry during his last campaign, has massively deregulated industry that spews heat-trapping gas and cut subsidies to renewable energy. This would give America — the No. 1 oil producer in the world — energy independence and cheaper prices, he has said.

“Governor Newscum flew all the way to Brazil to tout the Green New Scam, while the people of California are paying some of the highest energy prices in the country. Embarrassing!,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement, using one of Trump’s favored nicknames for Newsom. “President Trump will not allow the best interest of the American people to be jeopardized by the Green Energy Scam. These Green Dreams are killing other countries, but will not kill ours thanks to President Trump’s common sense energy agenda.”

Climate impacts in California and around the world

Climate change is undeniable, despite Trump calling it a hoax, Newsom said.

“If you don’t believe in science, and a lot of people apparently don’t, you have to believe in your own eyes,” Newsom said. “Nighttime temperatures, record-breaking heat globally, acidification of our oceans, impacts on our coral reefs. You’re not able to go where your grandfather brought you for the first time, your dad brought you and bring your kids because there’s another fire and it’s another closure and the air quality’s been degraded.”

California has warmed 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) in the past 30 years — slightly more than the U.S. as a whole — and gets nearly 7 inches of rain (17.7 centimeters) less now than it did in 1995, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records.

Some of California’s largest and most destructive wildfires in history have sparked in the last five years, including two January infernos that devastated neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles. The previous winter, meanwhile, brought record-breaking rainfall as multiple atmospheric rivers pounded the state.

“I’m just privileged to represent one of the most blessed and cursed states in the world that’s on the tip of the spear of the impacts of climate change,” Newsom said. “How about the simultaneous crisis of wildfires, drought, and floods stacked on top of each other.”

“Anyone paying attention here?” added Newsom.

California’s ambitious climate goals and challenges

At home, Newsom has confronted the economic and political realities of pursuing the state’s ambitious goal of by 2045 reaching carbon neutrality, or taking as much carbon pollution from the atmosphere as emitted. He recently signed legislation to boost oil production in part of the state, and his party has grappled with how to confront high gas prices. California also has some of the highest electricity rates in the country.

California is also dealing with the massive energy and water demands of data centers by keeping its last nuclear plant running longer than planned, adding huge chunks of solar power and battery storage and investing in nuclear fusion, Newsom said. Those energy needs will grow as AI continues to boom. Many of the nation’s top AI companies are headquartered in California.

Veteran climate negotiations analyst Alden Meyer of the European think tank E3G said it was unfortunate that America’s federal government was not participating in the talks.

“But it is very positive that we have these other leaders from the United States that are here in Belem,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Anton L. Delgado in Belem, Brazil, and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

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