The California-China Climate Institute is celebrating the Newsom Administration’s successful trip to China, which we helped to plan and support. The trip focused on delivering real climate action and creating opportunities for future collaboration and cooperation.

“The U.S. and China have many differences, but we share a common threat that can only be addressed through bold, sustained collaboration and cooperation,” said Jerry Brown, Chair, California-China Climate Institute, “Governor Newsom’s trip is exactly what’s needed right now and the Institute was proud to help make it happen.”

It was the first visit to China by a U.S. governor in more than four years and built on former California Governor and Institute Chair Jerry Brown’s Chine exchanges in 2013 and 2017.

The Institute provided planning and on-the-ground support throughout the Newsom Administration’s weeklong trip and contributed in a number of ways, including:

• Facilitating newly signed agreements with China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing – building on existing MOUs between California and China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment and Hainan Province. Notably, the Institute will serve as the Secretariat for all of these agreements. 
• Co-hosting the Great Wall Climate Dialogue, which in addition to Governor Newsom and top California government officials, included senior leaders from China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment andGuangdong, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, and Sichuan provinces.  
• Supporting the development of the “Declaration of Enhanced Subnational Climate Action and Cooperation Between the State of California and the People’s Republic of China,” the first declaration of its kind between China and a subnational government. 
• Supporting high-level meetings, including with President Xi Jinping, Vice Premier Han Zheng, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and National Development and Reform Commission Minister Zheng Shanjie.

Building on this momentum, the Institute will host and facilitate climate-focused exchanges between top officials from California and China during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco next week.