San Francisco, Jul 7 (IANS): California Governor Jerry Brown has announced that his state will gather leaders from around the world for a global environmental summit next year, the media reported.
Brown made the remarks while addressing the Global Citizens Festival in Hamburg, Germany, via videoconference, on Thursday ahead of the G20 economic summit which will be attended by world leaders on Friday including US President Donald Trump, reports The New York Times.
"Look, it's up to you and it's up to me and tens of millions of other people to get it together to roll back the forces of carbonization and join together to combat the existential threat of climate change. That is why we're having the Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, September 2018," Brown said.
"Yes, I know President Trump is trying to get out of the Paris agreement, but he doesn't speak for the rest of America.
"We in California and in states all across America believe it's time to act," the Governor added.
Last month, Trump declared that the US would withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate accord, in which nearly 200 nations pledged to curb greenhouse gas emissions and support poor countries' plans to develop clean energy and protections against climate-related disasters.
The California summit meeting will bring together the leaders of states, cities, businesses and others who made pledges to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Paris accord, The New York Times reported.
According to Governor Brown's office, the summit meeting will be the first time an American state has hosted an international climate change conference with the direct goal of supporting the Paris Agreement.
Days after his announcement, the former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg published a letter to the UN signed by more than 1,200 mayors, business leaders, university presidents and others declaring "we are still in" the climate deal.