Arnold Schwarzenegger used one of his last big moments as California’s governor to rally regional and business leaders on climate change today, saying that together they had the muscle to force national governments to act.

At the opening of his third and last climate summit, Schwarzenegger said leaders could learn from California’s example as an environmental pioneer.

“I know that together we can usher in a new era and build a cleaner and brighter, more prosperous future, so I say: let’s do it,” Schwarzengger told the summit at the University of California at Davis.

The two-day summit is one of his final opportunities to shore up his reputation as California’s green governor. His successor, Democrat Jerry Brown, takes over in January. Schwarzenegger plans to drive home the message tomorrow with the launch of his R20 partnership of regional and business leaders, which aims to function like a financial matchmaking service, finding investors from the World Bank and private corporations for renewable energy projects in developing countries. The UN climate chief and the state department have endorsed the programme. The governor is also expected to announce a conservation agreement covering 20% of the world’s tropical forests in 14 US states and Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria.

The two-day summit, which brings together US, Canadian and international leaders along with celebrities such as Harrison Ford and Deepak Chopra, was perfectly timed to show up the fragility of green reforms: it comes just two weeks after Republican victories in the mid-term elections shut off prospects for action on global warming in Washington.

Global leaders will gather in Cancun later this month for the UN’s climate conference. But after the collapse of last year’s summit at Copenhagen, they have warned that there is scope only for limited agreements on climate finance issues.

But Schwarzenegger told the summit to press on. “I’m sure that many of you of course were discouraged and wondered, ‘What does it all mean for our environmental movement here? Is this a vision of a clean energy future, or is it a fairy tale?’” he said.

But he said California had offered signs of encouragement. Californians voted by more than a 20% margin last month to reject a ballot initiative that would have rolled back the state’s landmark climate law. The scale of that victory demonstrated that climate change had outgrown the old categories of being seen as a Democratic issue or a Republican issue and was now a much broader concern.

He went on to say that the “green revolution” was under way from Norway to China: “The science is on our side, the economy is on our side, the people are on our side.” he said.

Several of yesterday’s speakers picked up on Schwarzenegger’s main theme - that action by state governments and business leaders could make up for some of the failures by national governments.

A number also took digs at the failed efforts by Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress to pass a sweeping climate change law.

“Maybe we don’t have to say we have got to have a big comprehensive solution,” said George Shultz, secretary of state under the first George Bush and a key adviser to Schwarzenegger. “Let’s say let’s do a little of this and a little of that.”