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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Senior officials from California and New Zealand signed a commitment Friday agreeing to help fight climate change by sharing ideas and best practices, including how to get millions of electric vehicles on the road.
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke about the deal at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The agreement binds both governments to specific policies, but outlines broad areas of cooperation.
“We have a natural bond and I’m very happy that we penned it today to confirm that and continue our collaboration on one of the biggest challenges of our generation,” Ardern said. Said.
Cars, trucks and other parts of the transportation industry contribute to California’s largest greenhouse gas emissions, with New Zealand the second largest after agriculture, Ardern said. California is taking action to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. New Zealand wants 30% of all car sales to be electric by that year.
Newsom said he expects competition to grow in the electric vehicle market that Tesla currently dominates, comparing it to when Netflix began to face competition from other streaming services.
New Zealand is home to 5 million people and has a much smaller economy compared to California’s population of 39 million. Ardern said her government will talk to California officials about programs that offer incentives for people to get rid of old, gas-burning cars.
New Zealand is heavily focused on reducing emissions from its key agricultural sector.
California is also home to a large agricultural industry that produces many of the world’s fruits and vegetables. The agreement says the two governments can participate in joint projects to expand agricultural practices that improve soil health, reduce methane emissions and increase water productivity.
The cooperation agreement was signed by Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, and Jeremy Clarke-Watson, New Zealand’s Consul General to Los Angeles.
California already has climate-focused agreements with many other countries, including China, Canada, and Mexico.
Former California Governor Jerry Brown, who is also a Democrat, helped form a coalition of 270 local governments aimed at keeping emissions growth below 2 degrees Celsius.
At the global climate change conference held in Scotland last year, California signed a brief joint declaration with New Zealand and the Canadian province of Quebec to share information on climate policies, including carbon markets.
The issue of gun control was also expected to come to the fore, given Ardern’s high-profile role in the 2019 massacre of 51 people at two Christchurch mosques.
Newsom is pressing the state legislature to send him a pack of gun reform bills after 19 children and two teachers were killed this week at an elementary school in Newsom, Texas.
Less than a month after the Christchurch attacks, the New Zealand parliament voted to ban most automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
Newsom and Ardern did not discuss gun control publicly, but Ardern did address her country’s actions on the issue in response to a question about the “shared values” between California and New Zealand.
“It was clear that the people of New Zealand expected their politicians to find quick and swift solutions,” Ardern said. “Are these the answers to all our gun-related problems in New Zealand now? No, but they were practical steps that we believed were necessary and that would have made a difference. That’s how we did them.”
Investigators say that an 18-year-old gunman, who shot and killed 10 customers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, was investigating the racist Christchurch attack, and also broadcast the attack live as the Christchurch attacker.
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