Democrats’ sweep of Congress doesn’t mean a seamless victory for clean energy over the next two years, California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned COP31. “I don’t want to romanticize what this will mean. I don’t expect they’ll do anything but double down,” Newsom said, adding that state and local leaders need to “hold on” and continue working on their own clean energy initiatives for the next two years. He was joined at the summit on Thursday by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and about a dozen mayors. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI., and a group of House members led by Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., will attend the summit tomorrow. Together they’re the only US elected officials to attend COP31, which has no federal representation. Walz was more optimistic: “They need to just get out of the way, and it will be much more difficult for them to put up barriers now,” he said.
Meanwhile, other world leaders expressed a wide range of views on the main podium. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham promised “a new era of British leadership,” while Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez insisted her country has a “sovereign right” to produce more oil, and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said the US should pay compensation for environmental damage caused by the war in his country.
