California and Sonora sign agreement to strengthen climate, economic ties
Sam Ribakoff
SACRAMENTO (CN) — California and the Mexican state of Sonora will work together to combat climate change and strengthen economic ties after the governors of the two states signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday.
“We now have to stop looking on the sides and not ignore that something is happening. I join efforts in a fight that is going to be recognized by humanity in the future,” said Alfonso Durazo Montaño, governor of Sonora, in Spanish at a press conference on Monday at the Stanford Mansion in Sacramento.
Sonorans and Californians have both experienced excessive temperatures and “dryness” caused by climate change, which “is hurting the people who are in the most need,” Durazo added.
This agreement, Durazo said, is “fundamental for humanity.”
What the agreement means, though, was not spelled out at the press conference.
On Sunday, Newsom’s press office described it as an agreement to “strengthen climate and economic ties between the states, including through advancing the development of clean energy, building resilient supply chains, and collaborating on clean transportation efforts.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom also took the event as an opportunity to opine on America’s political climate.
“Wisdom is a butterfly, not a gloomy bird of prey,” Newsom said, quoting a William Butler Yeats poem.
“Our relationship to this moment and moments that are being advanced in Washington, D.C. — there couldn’t be a greater contrast. The gloomy. The butterfly,” he added, pointing to the agreement with Sonora as an optimistic measure in the face of recent climate change-related disasters in California like massive wildfires that destroyed towns like Paradise in 2018 and ones that devastated the city of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles at the beginning of the year.
The extreme nature of climate change-caused natural disasters parallels extremes in American politics, Newsom added.
“I’m grateful that we have the opportunity to establish a brighter future,” he said. “I’m mindful that if there’s any hope for the future, those with lanterns will pass them on to others — meaning we are here to advance a cause, but we may not be here to realize that cause.”