Update: Gavin Newsom cancels trip to Glasgow for UN climate talks citing ‘family obligations’
California Gov. Gavin Newsom canceled his planned trip to Glasgow, Scotland, for the United Nations climate conference in a surprise announcement Friday morning, citing “family obligations.”
“Due to family obligations, Governor Newsom will no longer be traveling to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) and will instead be participating virtually, focusing on California’s landmark climate change policies,” spokeswoman Erin Mellon wrote in a statement.
Mellon declined to give details about the reason for the cancellation.
A California delegation, now led by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, will still go to the conference. Fifteen lawmakers still plan to go, alongside several members of the Newsom administration, including Environmental Protection Secretary Jared Blumenfeld and Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot.
Newsom’s wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, has also canceled her trip to the conference, Mellon said.
World leaders are meeting in Scotland to discuss strategies to slow the pace of global warming. Prior to the governor’s cancellation, former Gov. Jerry Brown and environmental activists said Newsom would play an important role by presenting the Golden State’s ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a model for other governments.
Conference attendees will discuss progress toward limiting global emissions so net temperature rise will stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The world is currently on track to exceed that target, established in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, in the 2030s, according to a United Nations report released over the summer.
California and the rest of the world are already seeing more extreme weather events including heat waves, droughts and storms. Exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius target will exacerbate those events further, according to the report, which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called “a code red for humanity.”
On a briefing call, Newsom’s senior climate adviser Lauren Sanchez told reporters she and other administration officials attending plan to talk about California’s policies on phasing out gas-powered cars and limiting oil drilling.
“We know here in California that we are already seeing the devastating impacts of this crisis, and that we have the courage and the track record to be the global pace car on our race to stay within 1.5 degrees,” Sanchez said. “We are years ahead of other states and countries in both ambition and implementation.”
She pointed to California’s first-in-the-nation carbon pricing laws, which charge companies to pollute, and the continued growth of the state’s economy as it transitions toward more green energy jobs, including in the electric vehicle market.
Administration officials did not yet have a schedule for which events they would attend at the conference, but stressed that they think they will be effective at the conference even without the governor attending in person.
Sen. Bob Hertzberg, one of the lawmakers traveling to the conference, echoed that view in a statement Friday.
“While we’ll miss the governor being in Scotland in person, he will still very much be participating virtually,” the Los Angeles Democrat wrote. “California will be well-represented on the world stage by our state delegation.”
Kounalakis told the Associated Press that she thought she might be asked to go to Glasgow after speaking to Newsom on Thursday.
“The governor has a young family and we should all be understanding,” Kounalakis said.
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 10:13 AM with the headline "Update: Gavin Newsom cancels trip to Glasgow for UN climate talks citing ‘family obligations’."