SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Jerry Brown said Thursday his state on the U.S. west coast will convene the world's climate leaders for the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit.
"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," the gorvernor told his audience at the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg, Germany, via a video message. "That is why we're having the Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, September 2018."
The announcement came on the eve of the scheduled summit in the northern German city by G20, which includes major economies of the world.
"President Trump is trying to get out of the Paris Agreement, but he doesn't speak for the rest of America," Brown said about the U.S. president's withdrawal from the international agreement on climate change in early June, adding that "we in California and in states all across America believe it's time to act, it's time to join together and that's why at this Climate Action Summit we're going to get it done."
To be held ahead of the 24th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24), the summit in San Francisco, a city in Northern California, will be the first time a U.S. state hosts an international climate change conference with the direct goal of supporting the Paris Agreement.
The event is expected to gather representatives from subnational governments, businesses, investors and civil society to demonstrate the groundswell of innovative, ambitious climate action from leaders worldwide, highlight the economic and environmental transition already underway and spur deeper commitment from all parties.
"We need people that represent the whole world because this is about the whole world and the people who live here," said Brown, who has been building his alliance against cliamte change both within the United States and with other countries around the world. "We have to do something and we can do it."
The announcement, according to a news release from the governor's office, is the product of months of discussions between Brown and Christiana Figueres, former United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary, who encouraged the governor to host a summit in 2018 in California to drive further climate action.
