Inslee joins U.S. leaders in Bonn to affirm commitment to act on climate
Last June, Gov. Jay Inslee was sitting with nearly 100 other guests in the dining room of California Gov. Jerry Brown’s home at a lunch event to celebrate Fiji becoming the newest signatory to the Under2 MOU, an international coalition of national and subnational governments committed to ambitious climate action.
The lunch had particular significance in the wake of recent events. President Donald Trump had just announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. In response, Brown and Inslee, as well as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, had launched the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance with more than a dozen states committing to achieving their share of the U.S. greenhouse gas reduction target.
So while what happened at that lunch was unprecedented, it wasn’t necessarily surprising.
Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is also the president of COP23, the 23rd annual convening of nations to talk about next steps in global climate action. Right after signing the Under2 MOU, Bainimarama invited Inslee, Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon, and Jerry Brown to attend COP23 in Bonn, Germany, and deliver a message to the world that the U.S. was still in for the fight against climate change.
All three West Coast governors agreed. They would help a wide collection of U.S. voices stand in as the collective, representative voice of U.S. action on climate.
With every nation in the world — save the U.S. — formally committed to the Paris agreement, COP23 drew an estimated 25,000 participants representing nations, subnational governments, businesses, schools, universities, NGOs and faith communities.
Read more on the governor's Medium page.