California pushing to formalize role of subnational governments at global climate talks

California delegates to this week’s global climate summit are hoping to cement a more prominent position for subnational governments in future negotiations, state officials told reporters on Tuesday.

“Part of our presence in California is really to make the case that subnational governments — that is, states, provinces, cities — need to have a central role in this international collaboration to combat climate change,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency.

Crowfoot and other members of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration were speaking at a Zoom media briefing just hours before their departure to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai.

The annual climate talks will bring together global and local leaders for negotiations, consultations and wide-ranging conversations this week and next.

Crowfoot acknowledged that 198 countries, rather than subnational governments, are party to the global commitments set in the 2015 Paris Climate Treaty, such as keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

“We’re not nation states. We’re not in those formal negotiations,” the secretary recognized. “But we know that subnational governments are critical to actually implement the commitments that have been made, including in the Paris Agreement.”

At the upcoming summit, California will therefore be working with other states and cities “to make the case that we need to formalize the commitments of subnationals as part of the COP,” according to Crowfoot.

In the U.S. alone, he contended, there are sufficient states that want to “continue to make progress, regardless of who leads our federal government.”

But with regards to the current federal leadership, Crowfoot credited President Biden — who is reportedly skipping the global climate summit for the first time in his presidency — for the strong progress he has made in the national fight against climate change.

“The precedent for some of this discussion was when former President Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement,” said Lauren Sanchez, senior climate advisor to Newsom.

Trump withdrew from the treaty in November 2020 after promising to do so since June 2017 — a decision that Biden then reversed during the first days of his presidency.

But in the intervening period, states formed the U.S. Climate Alliance, which Sanchez described as an effort to ascertain whether subnational entities could “still uphold the American commitment to the Paris Agreement.”

“That was really meaningful for the global community as it related to messaging,” she said.

This campaign showed “that America was still very committed to climate action, despite what our national government’s posture was,” according to Sanchez.

She cited similar such efforts during the administrations of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, and of Australia’s former prime minister, Scott Morrison.

“There’s a lot of good precedent for — despite the change in national governments — making sure we’re able to account for formalize and advance the subnational commitments to climate action,” Sanchez added.

What that might look like as COP28 unfolds is a concerted effort from subnational governments — many of whom have already been working together — to demand a more formalized role, Crowfoot explained.

The natural resources secretary described the current structure of COP as “concentric circles,” explaining that the tightest circle includes the negotiating nation states and that the outer circles contain subnational players and civil society groups.

One proposal being advanced by several organizations is a requirement for national governments to consult with their subnational parties as they set the next round of climate targets, according to Crowfoot.

As part of the Paris Climate Agreement, each participating country submitted its own nationally determined contributions aimed at minimizing global warming and reducing carbon emissions.

Crowfoot said that a new approach under discussion is the formalization of “sub-nationally” determined contributions with similar goals.

Such a process would aim to make these commitments official by entering them into a U.N. registry, the secretary explained.

“That means that when we have a change of government in a country like the United States, those commitments from states like California remain central and visible to the rest of the world,” Crowfoot added.