Newsom fills the U.S. void at COP30: “We are going to compete in this space”

The state of California's governor, Gavin Newsom, delivered one of the most forceful interventions of COP30, using the platform to deliver an unflinching rebuke of President Donald Trump's “dumb” US climate agenda. 

With the administration declining to send even a token delegation to Belém, a choice that startled many governments already uneasy about United States' direction, Newsom filled the conspicuous silence.

Newsom accused Trump of dragging the country backwards by scrapping hard-won climate policies and reviving fossil-fuel expansion. He labelled the US President a "wrecking ball" and warned that the US is forfeiting economic ground at the very moment China is scaling up its influence in clean-energy manufacturing and supply chains. Instead of Beijing just winning, Newsom argues that Trump is "handing the future to China" while his state is demonstrating that climate action, economic growth, worker protections, and job creation can advance together. 

On Monday, speaking with investors in São Paulo, he described the vacuum in US climate leadership as “jaw-dropping”, adding that the stakes are now too high for inaction.

"It's a wreaking ball presidency" - Californian Governor, Gavin Newsom

Foreign officials have privately expressed concern that the US absence signals a deeper retreat.

Yet Newsom's presence has operated as both partial reassurance and as a reminder of the divisions playing out inside the country. There has been a long running fight between Newsom and Trump, spanning wildfire management, immigration, and even Trump's public derision of the governor. The conflict is not new, but newly consequential. 

Newsom also called for a new way of talking about the climate crisis. Instead of relying on metrics, he argued that leaders must show how climate connects with concrete parts of everyday life, such as economics and cost. Climate change, he said, "seems abstract" when framed in technical terms; it only resonates when connected to real lives.

The Californian Governor is one of the 24 governors that are part of the US Climate Alliance, and these group of states represent more than half of the US’s population determined to show that much of the country remains committed to climate action. The strong exercising of soft power is not to imitate federal authority but keep momentum alive where Washington has stepped back. Trump's refusal to attend, Newsom said, "will not stop California from competing".

"We are going to compete in this space", he added.

Newsom's presence cannot replace a missing federal government, and it cannot sign treaties. But it does signal something: American climate leadership may increasingly come from states, cities, tribes, and private actors. Though that trajectory is not guaranteed, it shows that the US is not reducible to the Trump administration's choices. Even amid federal retreat, international partnerships may still have room to grow. 

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By Ella Burden

Image credit: Marina Sabioni/COP30