Newsom Takes Aim at Trump, Seizes COP30 Spotlight

With US President Donald Trump absent from the UN’s climate summit in the Amazon, California Governor Gavin Newsom seized the spotlight on Tuesday, launching a fierce critique of Trump’s fossil fuel agenda and his political legacy.

The well-groomed Democrat – widely seen as a potential candidate for the 2028 US presidential election – took aim at Trump for his two withdrawals from the Paris climate agreement, accusing the former president of “doubling down on stupid” by continuing to support Big Oil.

Newsom pledged that a future Democratic administration would rejoin the Paris Agreement “without hesitation”, calling it both a “moral commitment” and an “economic imperative.”

“It is an abomination that he has twice, not once, pulled away from the accords,” Newsom said in response to a question from AFP in Belém, the Brazilian city in the northern state of Pará, which is hosting the climate summit known as COP30.

Trump, who returned to office in January, pulled the United States out of the landmark Paris deal for a second time after previously doing so during his first term. He has dismissed the science behind human-caused climate change, calling it a “con job.”

Newsom’s first public appearance at COP30 was alongside Helder Barbalho, the Governor of Pará, where he highlighted California’s green credentials while sampling tropical fruits and acai juice. He pointed out that California, the world’s fourth-largest economy, is now powered two-thirds by renewable energy.

Following this, Newsom embarked on a busy schedule of meetings and press events, engaging with officials from Germany’s Baden-Württemberg state, Brazil’s Minister for Indigenous Peoples, and the Brazilian President of COP30, all the while followed by large media scrums usually reserved for national leaders.

Not Part of Official Negotiations

Despite the attention, regional leaders like Newsom have no formal role in the negotiations at COP30, which opened on Monday with urgent calls for continued climate action.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who also attended events on Tuesday, acknowledged the limitations of their involvement.

“Certainly, our meetings with leaders at the UN and others were to demonstrate that we’re interested in any possibility that does more about that direct negotiation and representation,” she said.

Her goal, she added, was to show that “when the federal government leans in, we do more, and when they lean out, we do more. It’s both.”

Christiana Figueres, a key architect of the Paris Agreement, suggested that the absence of the Trump administration might be a positive for the summit.

“I actually think it is a good thing,” she said, suggesting that while the United States may still work behind the scenes with petrostates like Saudi Arabia, “they cannot take the floor” and directly disrupt other nations’ negotiations.

‘Trump is Temporary’

Despite not having a seat at the table, US states and cities still hold significant influence in the fight against climate change.

A recent analysis by the University of Maryland found that if US states increase their climate efforts – and a climate-friendly president is elected in 2028 – US emissions could fall by more than 50 percent by 2035, nearly matching the 61-66 percent reduction goal set by President Biden’s administration.

“The president can’t throw a switch and turn everything off – that’s not how our system works,” explained Nate Hultman, who led the report.

The market-driven shift towards green energy is also gaining traction in US states with leadership that is less supportive of climate action, such as Texas, which was the country’s leading renewable energy producer last year, added Hultman, who has previously worked for Democratic administrations.

However, questions remain about how far state-level action can go without federal backing. Trump’s Republicans recently passed legislation that ended clean energy tax credits early, a move widely seen as a blow to the renewable energy sector.

Beyond pushing for more drilling at home and aggressively undermining green energy, the Trump administration also torpedoed international efforts to impose a carbon tax on shipping, vowing reprisals against countries that supported the plan.

Newsom urged nations to remain steadfast in the face of these efforts, stressing that it is vital to remember that “Trump is temporary” and that “you stand up to a bully.”