Newsom Meets Brazil's President Lula at COP31 as California Signs Wildfire and Clean Energy MOU With Portugal
California Governor Gavin Newsom, attending the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, met Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on November 12 and oversaw the signing of a new memorandum of understanding between California and Portugal covering clean energy, wildfire prevention and response. The Governor's Office said the Trump administration failed to send a delegation for the second year in a row, while California's delegation advanced a series of international partnerships at the summit.
The meeting with Lula built on the climate partnership California and Brazil signed in September 2025 to advance collaboration on carbon pricing, clean transportation and air quality, and on the wildfire partnership California signed with the Brazilian state of Pará when Brazil hosted COP30 in Belém last year. Newsom said California is at COP31 putting its partnerships to work, from fighting wildfires together to building a cleaner, safer energy future, and that President Trump's empty chair would not stop California from pulling up its own chair and leading the climate fight.
On Portugal, Newsom met Portugal's Secretary of State for Environment, João Manuel Esteves, and the new MOU was signed by California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot. The agreement deepens cooperation on clean energy, climate resilience and economic development, including offshore wind, battery storage and recycling, zero-emission transportation and port decarbonization. It builds on a 2022 wildfire partnership between CAL FIRE and Portugal's Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management, with new opportunities for joint training, forest management, satellite-based fire monitoring and emergency preparedness. The Governor's Office noted that Portugal, like California, has a Mediterranean climate and faces growing risks from wildfire, drought and extreme heat.
Newsom also joined Netherlands Climate Envoy Jan Versteeg on the main stage of the America Is All In Pavilion for a fireside chat moderated by Bloomberg TV's Jennifer Zabasajja, pointing to battery storage as the backbone of California's grid reliability, the state's extension of Cap-and-Invest through 2045, and a decade of California-Netherlands partnership on clean energy, electric vehicles, water management and resilience. Newsom co-chairs America Is All In with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb; its partners represent roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population and three-quarters of the U.S. economy. He closed the day at the invitation of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, joining governors and mayors from around the world, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, to elevate the role of states and cities in global climate action.
Newsom also congratulated Ethiopia's Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP32 President-designate, Dr. Gedion Timothewos, on hosting next year's conference in Addis Ababa, the first COP in sub-Saharan Africa since 2011, and discussed Ethiopia's rapid electric vehicle adoption and California's battery storage and EV charging work. The Governor's Office said Ethiopia in 2024 became the first African country to prohibit imports of gasoline and diesel vehicles, EVs now make up about 8 percent of its vehicle fleet, and more than 95 percent of its electricity comes from renewable sources, mainly hydropower. First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom took part the same day in an Engendering Sustainability panel hosted by The Climate Registry at its USA Climate Pavilion, saying women are receiving only 1.1 percent of venture capital dollars in the United States and that gender equality is essential to climate resilience.
California's delegation also includes Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, Public Utilities Commission President John Reynolds, Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez and Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation Director Samuel Assefa. COP31 runs November 9 to 20 in Antalya, hosted by Türkiye with Australia leading the negotiations, and this year's focus is implementation. Since Newsom took office in 2019, California has added more than 39,000 megawatts of utility-scale clean energy, battery resources have grown from fewer than 700 megawatts to more than 23,000 megawatts, and the state's clean energy workforce stands at 552,300, according to the Governor's Office. (Source: Office of the Governor of California)
Source: Office of the Governor of California
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加州州长 Gavin Newsom 在土耳其 Antalya 的 COP31 会场会见巴西总统 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva，两人握手合影。加州州长办公室官方照片。 / Photo: California Governor Gavin Newsom meets Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye. Official photo by the Office of the Governor of California.
