Newsom Storms Climate Conference and Assails Trump as a ‘Bully’

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Tuesday cast himself as the “stable and reliable” American partner to the world, called a reported White House proposal to open offshore drilling in the waters off California “disgraceful” and urged his fellow Democrats to recast climate change as a “cost of living issue.”

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat who is widely considered to be weighing a 2028 presidential bid, used his appearance at the United Nations climate summit in Belém, Brazil, to paint President Trump as a threat to American competitiveness by letting China dominate electric vehicles, solar panels and other clean energy technologies of the future.

“The United States of America better wake up at that,” Mr. Newsom said at one of his many packed sessions at the climate conference, known as COP30. “It’s not about electric power. It’s about economic power. We, as the state of California, are not going to cede that race to China.”

While the Trump administration opted not to send any representatives to the summit, China is using its pavilion inside the event to promote its successes.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, criticized Mr. Newsom, saying he “flew all the way to Brazil to tout the Green New Scam, while Californians are paying some of the highest energy prices in the country.” In a statement, she said “these Green Dreams are killing other countries, but will not kill ours thanks to President Trump’s commonsense energy agenda.”

As the most prominent American official at the summit, Mr. Newsom was trailed by crowds at the conference. Going from one packed event to the next, the governor stopped to talk to admirers, waved to an applauding crowd at one point and entertained questions from the media, with the United Nations security detail having trouble getting him to events on time. It was his first appearance at an international climate conference and it was all the more notable because of the absence of an official United States delegation.