Governors Global Climate Summit

This week's Governors' Global Climate Summit was all about creating momentum going into Copenhagen and demonstrating the critical role of sub-nationals — the state, provincial and regional leaders who will implement an estimated 50-80 percent of the international reduction targets set.

The leaders wrapped up their three-day summit in Los Angeles today by signing several declarations and statements, including pledging to pursue cleaner transportation methods, urging their national governments to include forest protection in any climate deal at Copenhagen, and offering technical assistance on low-carbon development in developing countries.

“We will be there to lead this battle!” Quebec Premier Jean Charest told the audience.

“When they write the story from Rio to Kyoto to Copenhagen, a big part of the story of the change from Kyoto to Copenhagen will be the leadership role of sub-nationals,” he said. “We did not wait for our national governments to move.”

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California's Arnold Schwarzenegger welcomed fellow governors and mayors from around the world to the second Governors’ Global Climate Summit this week with the goal of involving state and local leaders in collective action to solve the global climate crisis.

This year’s summit hopes to build upon the accomplishments of the first, in 2008, where international leaders signed a memorandum of understanding on reducing greenhouse gases from deforestation and reached preliminary agreements on a number of issues related to climate change.

Schwarzenegger sees the Summit as a leg on the road to Copenhagen. He promised the audience that the findings would be sent to UN negotiators and that he would attend talks in Copenhagen to represent what he is calling a “grassroots” sub-national movement on climate change and the green revolution.

“The 20th Century was fueled by dirty oil, dirty cars and dirty coal,” Schwarzenegger said, imploring leaders to put workers from coal mines into solar panel factories and oil workers into biodiesel refineries.

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