SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced that he will travel to the cities of Chengdu, Nanjing and Beijing in China during the first week of June to further strengthen California’s long-standing climate, clean energy and economic ties with China.
During the week-long trip, Governor Brown will participate in the Clean Energy Ministerial, an annual meeting of national energy ministers and other high-level delegates from nearly two dozen countries and will join China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and Sichuan Province to host the “Under2 Clean Energy Forum,” which expands on the Clean Energy Ministerial by bringing together members of the Under2 Coalition – leaders of cities, provinces and states – as well as businesses and NGOs to discuss subnational and non-state action to decarbonize the economy.
In addition to these two events in Beijing, Governor Brown will travel to Chengdu in Sichuan Province in southwestern China and Nanjing, the capital city of China’s eastern Jiangsu Province to build greater regional climate and economic collaboration and action. In 2015, both Sichuan and Jiangsu became the first Chinese provinces to join the Under2 Coalition.
Other meetings with regional and national Chinese officials are expected throughout the week.
This trip builds on significant diplomatic, environmental and business exchanges between California and China since Governor Brown took office, including: a Trade and Investment Mission to China in 2013; a first-of-its-kind climate agreement between China’s National Development and Reform Commission and a subnational entity signed in 2013 and renewed in 2015; and meetings between Governor Brown and President Xi during his visit to Los Angeles as then-Vice President of China in 2012 and again as President in Indian Wells in 2013 and Seattle in 2015.
The “Under2 Clean Energy Forum” expands on the event Governor Brown launched last year in San Francisco to highlight regional clean energy and climate action and collaboration, in conjunction with the Clean Energy Ministerial.
The Under2 Coalition – an international pact among cities, states and countries to limit the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius, the level of potentially catastrophic consequences – now includes 170 jurisdictions on six continents. Coalition members collectively represent more than 1.18 billion people and $27.5 trillion GDP – equivalent to 16 percent of the global population and 37 percent of the global economy.
Additional details and a full itinerary will be released in the coming weeks.