SACRAMENT- Gov. Gavin Newsom told world leaders Friday that President Trump's withdrawal from efforts to combat climate change would decimate the American auto industry and hand future economic viability to China and other nations embracing the transition to renewable energy.
Newsom, appearing at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, urged diplomats, business leaders and policy advocates to forcefully confront Trump's global bullying and his loyalty to the oil and coal industry. California's governor said the Trump administration's massive rollbacks on environmental protections will be short-lived.
“Donald Trump is temporary. He'll be gone in three years,” Newsom said during a Friday morning panel discussion on climate action. “California is a stable and reliable partner in this space.”
Newsom's comments came in the wake of the Trump administration's repeal of the hazard determination and all federal vehicle emissions regulations. The danger finding is the US government's 2009 claim that planet-warming pollution poses a threat to human health and the environment.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said the finding has been a regulatory overreach, placing heavy burdens on automakers, restricting consumer choices and resulting in higher costs for Americans. Its repeal marked the “largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” he said.
Scientists and experts were quick to condemn the action, saying it contradicts established science and will put more people in danger. Independent researchers around the world have long concluded that greenhouse gases released from the burning of gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuels are warming the planet and worsening climate disasters.
The move will also threaten the United States' position as a leader in the global transition to clean energy, with nations like China taking the lead in electric vehicle production and investments in renewable energy such as solar, batteries and wind, experts said.
Newsom's trip to Germany is just his latest international trip in recent months as he positions himself to lead the Democratic Party's opposition to Trump and the Republican-led Congress, and to seed a possible run for the White House in 2028. Last month, Newsom traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and in November to the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil, mocking and condemning Trump's policies on Greenland, international trade and the environment.
When asked how he would restore the world's trust in America if he became president, Newsom deflected. Instead, he offered a campaign-style soliloquy about California's success in fostering Tesla and the country's other major electric vehicle manufacturers, as well as being a magnet for industries spending billions of dollars on research and development for the global transition away from carbon-based economies.
The purpose of the Munich conference was to open a dialogue between world leaders on global security, military, economic and environmental issues. Along with Friday's discussion on climate action, Newsom is scheduled to appear at a livestreamed forum on transatlantic cooperation on Saturday.
Andrew Forrest, chief executive of Australian mining giant Fortescue, said during a panel on Friday that his company is proof that even the world's largest energy-consuming companies can thrive without relying on the carbon-based fuels that have powered industries for more than a century. Fortescue, which buys diesel fuel from countries around the world, will transition to a “green grid” this decade, saving the company $1 billion a year, he said.
“The science is absolutely clear, but so is the economics. I am, and my company Fortescue is, industry-level proof that turning to renewables is big economics, big business, and if you abandon it, in the end, your shareholders or your voters at the polls will decide you,” Forrest said.
Newsom said California has also shown the world what can be done with innovative government policies including electric vehicles and the transition to a non-carbon economy, and continues to do so despite attacks and regressive mandates imposed by the Trump administration.
“This is about economic prosperity and competitiveness, and that's why I'm so furious with what Donald Trump has done,” Newsom said. “Remember, Tesla exists for a reason: the California regulatory market, which created the incentives, structure and certainty that allowed Elon Musk and others to invest and build that capability. We're not going to walk away from that.”
California has led the nation in the push toward electric vehicles. For more than 50 years, the state enjoyed unique authority from the EPA to set more stringent tailpipe emissions standards than those of the federal government, which is considered critical to the state's efforts to address its notorious smog and air quality problems. The authority, which the Trump administration has decided to rescind, was also the basis of California's plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
The administration took aim again at electric vehicles in its announcement Thursday.
“The forced transition to electric vehicles is eliminated,” Zeldin said. “Automakers will no longer be pressured to shift their fleets to electric vehicles, vehicles that are not yet sold in dealerships across the United States.”
But efforts to stop the energy transition may be too little, too late, said Hannah Safford, former director of transportation and resilience at the White House Office of Climate Policy during the Biden administration.
“Electric cars make more economic sense for people, there are more and more models available, and the administration can't necessarily stop that from happening,” said Safford, who is now associate director for climate and environment at the Federation of American Scientists.
Still, some automakers and trade groups supported the EPA's decision, as did fossil fuel industry groups and those oriented toward free markets and regulatory reform. Among them was the Independent Petroleum Association. of America, which praised the administration for its “efforts to reform and simplify regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Ford, which has invested in electric vehicles and recently completed a $30,000 electric truck prototype, said in a statement to the Times that it appreciated the EPA's move “to address the imbalance between current emissions standards and consumer choices.”
Toyota, meanwhile, referred to a statement from Automotive Innovation Alliance President John Bozzella, who similarly said that “automotive emissions regulations finalized in the previous administration are extremely difficult for automakers to meet given the current demand for electric vehicles in the market.”
