Sleep well tonight — Earth has been saved! Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom endorses global fossil fuel phaseout at UN climate summit
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/nov/13/california-gavin-newsom-endorses-fossil-fuel-phaseout
By Mark Hertsgaard
Excerpt: Newsom is the most prominent US politician at Cop31, a process the Trump administration continues to boycott
The leader of the world’s fourth biggest economy, California governor Gavin Newsom, has explicitly endorsed a global phase out of the fossil fuels that drive climate breakdown.
Newsom told the Guardian that California is “100%” behind the efforts of the so-called Santa Marta coalition, a group of more than 50 countries that includes many of the world’s largest economies, to transition away from oil, gas and coal toward solar, wind, batteries and other non-carbon energy sources.
Speaking at the Cop31 UN climate summit on Thursday, Newsom said: “When you have a product that is obviously superior, which clean energy is for the climate and the economy, why wouldn’t you make that shift as quickly as possible?”
As the head of America’s most populous and economically powerful state, Newsom is the most prominent US politician at Cop31, a process the administration of US president Donald Trump continues to boycott.
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Newsom, a Democrat, is widely expected to run for president in 2028. His statement raises the possibility that the US, the world’s biggest economy and largest historical emitter of planet-warming gases, could join the Santa Marta coalition if he wins the presidency two years from now.
More than 80 countries wanted last year’s COP30 to begin to develop a global “roadmap” to phase out fossil fuels. A handful of petrostates led by Saudi Arabia blocked that effort, relying on the disputed notion that decisions at UN climate summits can only be made by consensus. Undaunted, countries favoring a roadmap met in April in Santa Marta, Colombia, to begin designing a phase out on their own.
“Love it,” Newsom said of the challenge that this Santa Marta “coalition of the willing” is posing to the US and other states intent on keeping the world burning fossil fuels.