Kerry and Xie may be out, but California abides

SACRAMENTO, California — It’s a moment of shakeup for the U.S.-China relationship on climate change, but California officials are trying to stay the course.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state leaders started establishing ties with Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua's successor, Liu Zhenmin, months ahead of Xie's retirement in January.

Newsom met with Liu, a former U.N. diplomat, when he was in Beijing in October — a previously unreported detail of the governor's climate-focused trip. Liu also got a tour of the Port of Long Beach and the California Air Resources Board's laboratory in Riverside when he was in California for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November, Newsom's climate aide, Lauren Sanchez, said.

Relations between the world's two largest emitters seem relatively stable right now, with a continued thawing of U.S.-China tensions and President Joe Biden’s pick Wednesday of John Podesta, a climate heavy hitter with deep experience in U.S.-China diplomacy, to succeed John Kerry as U.S. climate envoy.

But former President Donald Trump looms, as do a host of thorny geopolitical disputes that could send ties spiraling again. California officials say they're ready to take up any slack.

"The world is aflame with conflict," former Gov. Jerry Brown, chair of UC Berkeley's California-China Climate Institute, said in an interview. "We need many points of contact. It can't just be Washington to Beijing, we need to knit together many relationships in order to deal with climate.”

California is also retaining close ties with Xie, who's staying on as co-chair of Brown's climate institute. But it's hitting the ground running with Liu.

“Xie will still be very engaged in the California-China relationship on climate, but we’re really thrilled that his successor has already been to California, already met with our whole EPA and CARB team, heard our whole briefing on methane and the scoping plan and ZEVs and saw all the great enforcement work that we've done,” Sanchez said.

On the U.S. side, Podesta will remain at the White House after Kerry steps down in the coming weeks, but he will continue coordinating closely with the State Department, including Kerry deputies Rick Duke and Paris Agreement architect Sue Biniaz, Sanchez's longtime mentor.

For now, California is starting to see the fruits of Newsom’s trip to China, where he signed five agreements with local and national governments covering everything from electric vehicles to methane.

“We have federal delegations and subnational delegations already locking in their trips to California,” said Sanchez.

Brown said he expected Podesta to be "imaginative and very energetic in building the cooperation with China and we’re here to lend a helping hand in whatever way we can.”

“If for some reason, Biden is not reelected, California and other states will have to carry the torch.”

An earlier version of this report first appeared in the California Climate newsletter. Sign up here!

CORRECTION: An original version of this article described Sue Biniaz as Lauren Sanchez’s longtime mentee. Biniaz is her longtime mentor.