California Governor Jerry Brown heads to China Friday for a week-long trip focused on climate change. It’s the governor’s first trip back to China since he led a trade delegation in 2013 and comes after President Donald Trump's announcement Thursday that he will pull out of the Paris climate accord.
CapRadio's Ben Bradford will be traveling with Brown. He spoke with Brown this week about the trip.
Since the election of Trump, Brown has described China as “the great hope” on climate change.
"At a time when Trump is going AWOL, California wants to be right on the playing field and taking decisive action," Brown said. "And with the Chinese government representing a billion, 300 million people, that’s a terrific ally to push the ball forward on dealing with decarbonizing our future."
California already has several climate change agreements in place with Chinese regional and national governments, but Brown says the state can do more.
"We want to get a Chinese commitment to standardize their zero-emission cars with California so that we have a vast market, and will make it easier to introduce electric cars," Brown said.
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