Governor Opens Governors' Global Climate Summit 3 at UC Davis

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Well, thank you very much, thank you and thank you, Chancellor Katehi, for the wonderful introduction and the nice things that you said. And on behalf of all Californians I'm honored to welcome you to our Third Annual Governors' Global Climate Summit.

Let me just say a special thank you, first of all, to all of you for coming here today from all over the world and also a special thank you to Chancellor Katehi and the entire UC Davis community for their warm hospitality. I mean, what a beautiful campus and what an extraordinary job they have done, bringing all of this together and organizing this. Let's give a big, big hand to UC Davis and to Chancellor Katehi. (Applause)

Now, earlier we heard the chancellor brag a little bit about the groundbreaking environmental work that is going on here on this campus. Well, she has a right to brag, because a lot of great things are going on here on this campus. But, of course, I'm the governor of the great state of California, so I also have a right to brag a little bit about the great work that she is doing and that UC Davis is doing.

I mean, UC Davis is the leading publisher of environmental research in America, there are no two ways about that. Its professors and scientists are pioneering innovative and green-building energy efficiency and also clean transportation and working on so many different issues and I'm so proud of them. At the same time they are teaching and training our environmental leaders of tomorrow. I want to thank them for their great work. And they're not just talking and it's not just academic work but when we started our Hydrogen Highway in California it was UC Davis that were the first ones there building their hydrogen fueling station right here at this campus. (Applause)

So we want to thank them and, of course, there are so many others we want to thank, just because this great Global Climate Summit is not just a one-man show; there are so many people that worked together.

I want to thank Secretary George Shultz, first of all, for being out here and working with us on important environmental issues. (Applause) And he is going to be one of the next speakers.

I want to thank Bonnie Reiss and Carl Bendix and Will Fox for their extraordinary work in pulling all of this together. (Applause)

I want to thank also Secretary Linda Adams and our Environmental Protection Agency and Mary Nichols and our Air Resources Board for helping us organize this. (Applause)

And Deepak Chopra for coming here and being one of our speakers here, I want to thank him also and also Harrison Ford, who is a great environmentalist, who is also going to speak right after me here. Let's give him also a big hand. (Applause)

We want to thank also the sponsors, including the Aga Khan Development Network, for their great work and helping us sponsor this event here. And, of course, their representative is here, Prince Hussein Aga Khan himself, so let's give him a big hand and the organization. (Applause)

And then, of course, BMW -- which is great, to have a car manufacturer be the sponsor and it's a car manufacturer that is really into building alternative fuel vehicles and we have seen them drive around these last few days -- so let's give a big hand to BMW. (Applause)

And then Chevron, which is an oil company, one of the unusual ones that are on our side and is helping to go in the direction of alternative fuels. Let's give them a big hand for being one of the sponsors. (Applause)

And then, of course, our co-hosts, Governor Jennifer Granholm from Michigan and Governor Ted Kulongoski from Oregon and Chris Gregoire from Washington and Governor Jim Doyle from Wisconsin. Let's give all four of them a big, big hand. (Applause)

I also want to thank Terry Tamminen, who is sitting out here in the audience, for all his great work that he is doing, even though not with the administration but from the outside. Thank you. (Applause)

You know, last year we met in Los Angeles, which is the entertainment capital of the world. And so this year we thought we should bring this conference to the environmental capital of the world, so this is why we are here in Davis. (Applause)

And it is terrific to see all of you here again. It's always nice when we all get together. Of course, we actually saw each other just last December over in Copenhagen. And what a beautiful place; clean city -- I loved the snowfall and I loved watching the people driving to work with their bicycles in the middle of the winter, in the middle of the snowfall, with their little babies on the back and all of those things. So that was all fantastic.

But the conference ended up falling short, as you all know. There was a tremendous buildup going into Copenhagen. Some pundits described it as the most important world conference since the end of the Second World War. Yet, as we all know, it failed to produce a binding international agreement.

But as I always said, as they move forward and start working on and hopefully get, eventually, an binding agreement, we should do our work, the subnationals should do their work. I'm sure that many of you, of course, were discouraged and wondered, what does that all mean for our environmental movement here? Is this vision of a clean energy future just a fairy tale? Is the hill simply just too steep to climb? Are the special interests, the oil companies and the coal companies and all of them, simply too powerful? What does it all mean?

I imagine that after, of course, Copenhagen finished and adjourned, the big polluters and the special interests and their lobbyists, gleefully they got together and had a little party, a little party that they actually brought the environmental progress to a screeching halt.

The only thing is, I wouldn't celebrate too much if I would be them, because those people clearly have not been here at this university or attend this summit here and see all of our work. The truth, ladies and gentlemen, is that the Green Revolution is moving forward full-speed ahead without the international agreement. We are moving ahead and we are doing our work. (Applause)

And I am proud of the work that we have done. Look at just some of the exciting progress that we have made over the last 12 months since we last gathered:

* Norway, in the capital there, in Oslo, they have reduced its energy consumption by 70 percent simply by using an innovative and energy-efficient form of street lights -- 70 percent reduction, what great work -- without an international agreement. That's what subnational governments can do.
* Or the African region of Okavango planted 300,000 acres of trees, which will sequester 30 million tons of carbon dioxide.
* The state of South Australia is on track to generate 33 percent of its power from renewable sources by the year 2020.
* China is investing billions of dollars in electric and in hybrid vehicles,
* And South Africa is developing a solar project that, when complete, will provide one-eighth of all of the energy of the entire country.
* In New York City, for instance, 29 of New York City's universities and hospitals have accepted Mayor Bloomberg's challenge to reduce their emissions by 30 percent within the next few years.
* And here in California, in just the last few weeks we broke ground on the world's largest solar plant and the world's largest wind farm in the world, providing enough power to power 740,000 homes. But this is just the beginning. We approved, just in the last few months, solar plants to be built that will provide 4,000 megawatts -- 4,000 megawatts. We are very well on our way to our goal to have 33 percent of renewables by the year 2020 and that's not even including hydro. (Applause) When you fly over California you will see that solar panels are blanketing my state here on homes, on prisons, on hospitals and university buildings, on parking garages, on warehouses, everywhere.

Because of our environmental laws California is now 40 percent more energy efficient than the rest of the nation -- that's per capita. More than one-third of the world's clean-tech venture capital flows right here to our state. We lead the nation in clean energy patents and clean energy businesses.

Last year I told you, for instance, about the company, Solazyme, that is producing fuel from algae. Well, now they are having a contract with the Navy, where they are selling this fuel to the Navy and they're going to power their ships and their jets with that fuel. So this is real business here, ladies and gentlemen.

And on Friday I will be in Los Angeles for a car show. As you know, there are huge car shows all over the world, in Geneva, in Paris, in Tokyo and one of the big ones is in Los Angeles. Well, when I became governor of the great state of California we had a press conference at that car show, a press conference to point out the alternative fuel vehicles. There were two vehicles there -- two. A year after that we had eight, then we had 16 and now this year we will have 50 different vehicles there displayed, alternative fuel vehicles. (Applause)

So basically we are beginning one of history's great transitions, the transition to a new economic foundation for the 21st century and beyond, free of fossil fuels. And, of course, this transition is not easy. But then again, any change is not easy. Real change never is and it's sometimes ugly.

The special interests that profit from fossil fuels will not wither away and die without a fight, there are no two ways about that. They have deep pockets and they will stop at nothing to disrupt and to delay this transition.

The question is, will we have the courage and will we have the will to stand up to them, to stand up to them and to rebut their lies and to move forward? That is really the question. And I want to answer that question by telling you an extraordinary story of what took place right here in California.

Ladies and gentlemen, over the last several months an epic drama, an epic battle, played out right here in our state. This was a battle of old versus new, a battle of David versus Goliath. Polluting special interests, the same type of interests blocking international action and blocking action in Washington, recently descended on California to block our action here on the environment. They know that, as the world's eighth largest economy, California has the power to push environmental change around the globe and even though, as I have said many times, we are only a little spot on that globe but the power of influence that we have on the rest of the world is like a whole continent.

So they came to do battle in this state that is known for its leadership. They felt that, because they could already stop in Copenhagen all that environmental progress and they could stop already in Washington the environmental progress -- that no one now in Washington is talking about energy and about the environment anymore -- they thought there's one more place left, which is California. Let's go to California and crush them and then we eliminate all the problems and we don't have to worry about anything for the next 10 years.

Two Texan oil companies spent millions and millions of dollars to place an initiative on our November ballot called Proposition 23, to kill our environmental laws. That was the purpose. They trotted out all of the typical arguments. They claimed Proposition 23 was all about saving jobs. An interesting argument, of course, given that in California clean energy is a powerful engine of economic growth. As a matter of fact, in the green technology, this is the only area where we produce jobs right now in California, 10 times more jobs since 2005 than in any other sector.

This was not about jobs, ladies and gentlemen, it was about their ability to continue polluting California, it was about making their wallets even fatter. They claimed that the green tech future is just too costly.

Too costly? What are we talking about here? Have they ever considered the human costs, the human lives that their products cost? The cost of 19,000 people that are dying here in California alone every year because of smog, the cost of millions of hospital visits every year for smog related illnesses? Or how about the cost of the next war over oil? I mean, how many wars did we have already over oil? Isn't it already enough? They don't count any of that. (Applause)

These oil companies blanketed our state with advertising and pushing their lies. But when I ran for governor in 2003 I made it very clear that if those special interests push me around that I will push back and that's exactly what we have done. We formed a tremendous bipartisan coalition -- environmentalists, venture capitalists, health groups, businesses big and small, unions, farmers, Democrats, Republicans. Everyone came together.

And then, of course, we had one of the wisest people join us, Secretary George Shultz, Ronald Reagan's Republican Secretary of State. He joined in that fight not just because of global warming but because he believes that energy independence is critical to national security and he's going to talk about that later.

Proposition 23 was the largest public referendum in history on clean energy policy. Never before have the voters had such a clear and distinct choice placed in front of them, never before.

The oil companies flexed their muscles trying to overturn our environmental law but we flexed back and we flexed and we flexed. And you know something? Came November 2nd, we beat them. But not just by one point, or by three points, or by seven points but by 22 points -- 22 points. (Applause) The yes vote on Proposition 23 was 39 percent and the no vote was 61 percent.

Now, let me tell you something, this was very clear that the people just simply said to them, no, no to the greedy Texan oil companies, no to their lies and no to their pollution but yes to clean energy, yes to clean jobs and yes to a clean future. (Applause)

The people made it very clear to those special interests that here in California our environment is not for sale -- our environment is not for sale. And in doing so, we sent a message to the rest of the nation and the world that California's leadership is unwavering, our resolve is firm and we are here in the fight for the long run.

Now, why am I telling you all of this? Well, because I know that in our countries and in your local governments and in your states and provinces, you have similar challenges. When the economy is down there is often pressure to sacrifice the environment. They claim that look, you're losing all those jobs, you're losing money because you're trying to do this environmentally right thing but this doesn't work for the economy.

Well, I've said it many times, that you can protect the environment and the economy at the same time. I hope that our success here in California encourages you to fight back when you have those challenges, to keep fighting and keep fighting and fighting, because the science is on our side, the economics are on our side and the people are on our side. (Applause)

And there's another lesson in this story that I just told you -- there's another lesson. The environment is too often labeled as a Democratic issue, it's too often labeled as a liberal issue. Yes, California has more Democrats than Republicans -- that we know. But this is not a political issue; this is a people's issue. And this is why we won with 22 percent, because we don't have 22 percent more Democrats. It is because we got the Democratic votes, the Independent votes and also the Republican votes. We appealed to voters across the political spectrum. We never talked about Democrats versus Republicans or liberals versus conservatives.

We also did not focus just on climate change but we focused on jobs, on national security and on public health. There are people who may not believe in global warming but everyone, regardless of party, wants their kids to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Everyone believes in energy independence and everyone wants to save money by being more energy efficient and everyone is into job creation. Those are issues that we all can agree on. So as we move forward with our work let's not get stuck on the one thing that we maybe disagree on. Rather, let's talk about everything that we do agree on. (Applause)

Now, last year I spoke of big challenges ahead, big challenges that are ahead of us and I used the analogy about rolling a boulder up the hill. Although great progress has been made, as I pointed out but there is still a long way to go. That boulder is heavy, there's a massive weight that we must lift here and to do so everyone has to push together, everyone has to lift together, men and women, young and old, Democrats and Republicans. Let us forge ahead and build a great new coalition dedicated to our cause. I know that together we can usher in a new era and build a cleaner and brighter and more prosperous future, so I say let's do it.

Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause)

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