Chinese President Xi Jinping met this week with a powerful American leader who believes climate change is real and wants to open the economic floodgates for U.S.-China cooperation on green tech.



I’m not kidding.

While reporters struggled to find out if President Donald Trump has any knowledge of climate science in the wake of abandoning the Paris climate deal, California Governor (and prominent Trump critic) Jerry Brown was posing for photos with Chinese leaders—and pandas—in a full-frontal offensive to position his state not only as a leader on climate action, but as a quasi-nation-state looking to fill the void in reliable American leadership created by Trump.

He signed climate pacts with regional officials in Chinese provinces Jiangsu and Sichuan, met a slew of Chinese government ministers, and inked a major agreement with the central government to boost direct China-California cooperation on renewable energy, zero-emission vehicles, and low-carbon cities. Brown appeared with energy ministers from 24 countries and the European Union at this week’s Clean Energy Ministerial in Beijing, and his delegation is scheduled to meet 75 Chinese companies interested in working with California.

Another focus in Beijing is a side-event for the “Under2 Coalition,” a group Brown helped found in 2015, which now consists of 170 “sub-national” jurisdictions in 33 countries (including two Chinese provinces) committed to fighting climate change.