Now the California’s Russia-connected secession movement is stalled, China is stepping in to deepen the rift between the Golden State and the rest of the Union.

After President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, Governor Jerry Brown suffered a massive attack of hyperbole during a PBS interview and deemed the action “insane.”

Then Brown went to China and signed a climate change accord with the nation (for those of you interested in how constitutional this act is, here is a great discussion of State Treaties).

The agreement, though nonbinding, aims to expand cooperation between China and California on renewable energy, zero-emission vehicles and low-carbon urban development, Brown’s office said. It will establish a joint working group of Chinese and Californian officials to come up with ways to work together, and to invest in programs that would cut carbon emissions. Brown signed the pact with Wan Gang, China’s minister of science and technology, before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “California is the leading economic state in America and we are also the pioneering state on clean technology, cap and trade, electric vehicles and batteries, but we can’t do it alone,” Brown said Tuesday. “We need a very close partnership with China, with your businesses, with your provinces, with your universities.” Brown is in the middle of a weeklong trip to China, where he has signed similar agreements with leaders from Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces. Brown will headline the Under2 Clean Energy Forum on Wednesday in Beijing, a gathering of 170 cities, states and nations working to keep the global average temperature increase under two degrees Celsius.

Actually, it turns out that California is no longer the “leading economic state.” Per a 2016 analysis assessing various economic factors, Washington now has that distinction. But facts never did get in the way of Brown’s spin.

California is #10…for the time being.

It turns out that the trip to China is quite the junket! Over 30 Bay Area business leaders paid thousands of dollars to join the California Governor.

The business delegation is led by the Bay Area Council business advocacy organization and includes executives at transportation and energy companies, public utility leaders, academics, investors and a top executive of the San Francisco International Airport. Most paid a fee of about $5,500 on top of their travel costs to attend four days of events, including multiple private dinners and receptions with Brown, a clean energy ministerial and meetings with Chinese business and political leaders. Brown’s office declined to provide an estimate on the trip cost’s for him and staff members being paid for by a nonprofit group that takes private donations. “The purpose of this is really to enable California to play a global role on an issue that’s of huge global consequence,” said Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council, which helps run California’s trade office in China. “The governor showed a lot of appreciation about having fellow Californians take the time to go to China just for a few days.”

I will simply point out, again, that the policies promoted by the Bay Area have been toxic to much of the rest of the state.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the California-China summit are highlighting China’s steps to address its environmental footprint in the last few years and their statements that the government will $360 billion on green energy projects.

However, in the Washington Examiner, columnist Tom Rogan looks at the Paris Accord and points out that the better bet is fracking rather than “green energy” for the long-term health of both the American environment and the economy.

How about China, which will now seek to displace America as Europe’s closest ally? Again, the story is familiar. While China’s leaders talk a good game, the data suggests they have little interest in following through. As the left-leaning Centre for International Climate Research noted in March, China’s carbon reduction strategy is “nowhere near consistent with the overarching ambitions of the Paris Agreement.” Paris-accord sympathizers disagree. They cite China’s reduced coal usage as evidence of its seriousness about the process. Unfortunately, their assumption rests on the reliability of Chinese government data. As Michael Lelyveld explains, China’s national bureau of statistics is a very creative number factory, which is to say it makes up numbers. If America is serious about reducing carbon emissions while also protecting consumers and the economy, its leaders must heed the data. And the data proves that the U.S. energy market offers a pathway to a cleaner future. The Paris agreement, in contrast, is a non-binding fiction.

The California-China climate agreement is equally non-binding. I suspect that the Chinese will treat the agreement with the same degree of respect and seriousness it did with the Paris Accord.

In his stubborn quest to #Resist Trump, Brown has bound the citizens of California to senseless and economy-crushing rules with a partner that is less than reliable on this issues.



