Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to set himself up for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, embracing every left-wing activist issue he thinks will play well. That includes climate change, no matter how contradictory or pointless his climate grandstanding really is.
Newsom jetted down to Brazil for a climate conference that is more than 5,000 miles away from Sacramento. Newsom’s round-trip private jet flight, adding to global carbon emissions, is not the only climate hypocrisy on display here, either. The climate conference, COP30, necessitated Brazil mowing down tens of thousands of acres of the Amazon rainforest to pave a highway, lest the global elites and United Nations bigwigs in attendance be expected to sit in traffic or hold their conference somewhere with existing infrastructure.
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What was the message that was so important that Newsom had to fly down to a graveyard of rainforest trees to deliver it in person instead of via a video call? That President Donald Trump is bad, of course. Newsom said it was “shameful” that Trump was a bad ally to Brazil, and it was “jaw-dropping” that no one from the administration was in attendance at the conference. Newsom also bragged that, while the United States is “dumb” on climate change, “the state of California is not.”
Newsom has it all exactly backward, though. These global climate cooperation agreements are always a sham, because the U.S. is expected to bear the brunt of global climate treaties while China, the country with the least regard for the global climate, gets off scot-free. That applies to the Paris Climate Accords and the U.N.’s “climate reparations” scheme.
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If anyone’s climate policies are “dumb,” it’s Newsom’s, which he himself likely recognizes, as he has spent the last several years reversing his stances on nuclear energy policy, natural gas, oil regulations, and other issues. California under Newsom has ignored real climate issues, like forest management to lessen the severity of wildfires, instead obsessing over fake problems while putting forward “solutions” that are worse for the environment, like banning plastic bags.
Like every other issue he has faced as governor, Newsom has made a fool of himself on climate policy. He intends to make a fool of the U.S. on the global stage with this issue as well, taking the same position as former President Joe Biden that Americans should have a unique form of shame for climate change, all while he binds the U.S. to agreements that place the blame on Americans and offer exemptions and carveouts to the Chinese Communist Party.