This is Gavin Newsom - And, This is How Climate Change is Coming For All Of Us

00:00:00.000 Peace to the planet. I go by the name of Charlemagne the God. And guess what? I can't wait to see y'all at the third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. That's right. We're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April 26th at Pullman Yards. And it's hosted by none other than Decisions Decisions, Mandy B and Weezy.

00:00:16.100 OK, we got the R&B Money Podcast with Tank and Jay Valentine. We got the Woman of All Podcast with Sarah Jake Roberts. The Funky Friday Podcast with Cam Newton. The Naked Sports Podcast with Carrie Champion. Good Mom's Bad Choices Podcast. The Trap Nerd Podcast and many more will be on that stage live.

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00:00:51.640 The big guests continue on Las Culturistas. This week, it's the very funny Amy Poehler. Don't overthink it. They talk water. We did not drink water growing up. Water was not a thing.

00:01:02.640 You got parenting. You got teen boys. This is like the black diamond of parenting. And of course, I don't think so, honey. Horror movies. OK. OK. Amy Poehler is on Las Culturistas.

00:01:15.040 The latest episode is out now. Listen to Las Culturistas on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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00:03:20.000 One of the issues that animates so many of us living in states like California, but people all across the United States,

00:03:26.380 Florida, Louisiana, people in states that have been ravaged by some of the most extreme storms in our lifetime,

00:03:34.480 hurricanes, floods, fires here on the West Coast, I think all recognize the imperative of focusing on the issue of climate change.

00:03:43.840 Of course, so much of our focus is moved in other directions, but Mother Nature, she bats last and she bats a thousand.

00:03:51.400 And that's why this week, as we celebrate Earth Day in the United States of America, I thought it was important to talk about the state of climate policy in the United States of America.

00:04:02.880 California just reached two-thirds of all of our electricity now, renewable electricity.

00:04:08.660 We're in the how business, and my next guest is also focused on how America can lead the globe on low-carbon green growth.

00:04:18.740 This is Gavin Newsom, and this is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

00:04:23.900 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

00:04:53.900 During the Biden administration and the IRA and the infrastructure bill, promises that were promoted in Project 2025 that are taking shape.

00:05:04.820 The EPA coming out with a set of recommendations and rulemaking that they're looking to advance that is jaw-dropping.

00:05:13.260 So I really appreciate the timeliness of your visit and the opportunity to dialogue about some of these things.

00:05:19.260 Tell me what I don't know in this space, and tell me what folks listening should know about the state of climate policy in America.

00:05:28.480 I think what most people don't know is how close we are to a climate-driven economic collapse that comes when climate risk becomes uninsurable.

00:05:43.960 So you can't get a property insurance policy on your home.

00:05:48.140 There are plenty of Californians who are experiencing that.

00:05:51.060 And then when you can't get property insurance on your home, you can't get a mortgage on it.

00:05:56.360 You can't sell it to somebody who needs a mortgage. 0.73

00:05:59.620 So unless you're selling it to a billionaire who can pay cash, you're screwed.

00:06:03.580 So no mortgage means your property values crash.

00:06:08.180 And when your property values crash, if that happens to enough people, which it will, because this is driven by climate risk that touches millions and millions of people, you then get an economic wipeout like the 2008 mortgage meltdown caused across the country, harming people who had no problems with their mortgage.

00:06:26.560 It was just the economic wipeout.

00:06:28.240 So someone listening may think that may be slightly hyperbolic.

00:06:33.200 Then again, folks living on the coasts, folks living in the south, in places like Louisiana, obviously, in Florida, not just in California, are feeling that reality.

00:06:45.160 Obviously, the wildfires here in the western United States, the hurricanes in the southern part of the country.

00:06:52.600 What's the national prism then to begin to address this issue?

00:06:57.760 Obviously, we've got to deal with some of the underlying issues of climate change.

00:07:01.000 But in an adaptation policy, we often are talking about sea level rise.

00:07:04.880 We're talking about other strategies to mitigate.

00:07:07.880 But you're talking about a looming financial crisis, which raises the bar of concern.

00:07:12.560 Correct.

00:07:13.040 Yeah.

00:07:13.300 And Florida, I think, is first and worst.

00:07:16.220 Florida has more liability from the fund it's set up to backstop the insurers who go bust there, which is like a dozen already, because they're basically little pop-ups that aren't for real.

00:07:30.000 Right.

00:07:30.240 And the state steps in when they don't pay claims, and then the taxpayer has to pay, and they've got a separate state-backed insurance company that is trying to look like an insurance company and carrying all this liability that probably they won't be able to make good on.

00:07:47.060 And those two risks to Florida are bigger than the state's actual, like, sovereign debt.

00:07:55.900 So there's a huge overhang over Florida, and it's going to do nothing but get worse.

00:08:01.200 You've got property insurance rates that have tripled in a lot of places in Florida and that are expected to triple again.

00:08:09.020 You know, that's really brutal.

00:08:11.220 And when that happens, it starts cascading out through the economy.

00:08:15.340 The International Financial Stability Board put out a global warning to banks, look out for this.

00:08:23.380 This is coming because, for instance, if all these properties' values go down because they're not mortgageable any longer, then their value goes down on the loan-to-value ratio of a bank.

00:08:33.880 And now suddenly a bank doesn't look solvent any longer, and it's got its own problems.

00:08:37.740 So these problems cascade out into the economy, and that's what we have to prepare people for.

00:08:44.660 And I think, you know, you asked a great question, what do we do about it?

00:08:48.240 Step one is to stop what is causing this, which is, A, climate change, but behind that, the climate denial operation of the fossil fuel industry, which through disinformation and political corruption is just ruining our ability to deal with a problem whose solutions are actually pretty evident if we could get around the wiles and the mischief of the fossil fuel industry.

00:09:14.360 I appreciate the clarity on that. I mean, the climate crisis is nothing more than a fossil fuel crisis.

00:09:19.100 It's the burning of oil and gas.

00:09:22.760 And then lying about it to the public at industrial scale.

00:09:26.600 And having the best scientists, having the best researchers in this space for decades and decades, and being able to see into the future and then knowingly lying about it.

00:09:38.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:09:38.580 They weren't just in denial. They actually suppressed this information from the public for decades.

00:09:46.320 The scientists have known their stuff about climate this whole time.

00:09:49.520 I mean, the scientist community can really take a bow for really excellent presentations and really excellent understanding and predictions.

00:09:56.800 And that includes the ones paid by Exxon.

00:09:59.660 They got it right 30 years ago.

00:10:01.700 And Exxon needs some of the greatest geologists.

00:10:03.640 They hire some of the best and the brightest minds, best can be broadly described, but for the job intended.

00:10:10.460 So they're able to attract the talent because they're able to dig deep into their wallet to get that talent.

00:10:15.780 But as a consequence, they're digging deeper into our wallets right now because of the socialized costs.

00:10:21.820 There's been similar talent in the disinformation, propagandizing, setting up phony front groups.

00:10:28.200 The whole armada of disinformation effort that they run is also being done at a very, I hate to say it, it's being done very professionally.

00:10:40.160 And so, Senator, you're one of the few folks, I mean, there's a handful of you, and I give due where it is deserved.

00:10:47.040 There is a handful of U.S. senators that have the guts, because I think it takes guts to say what you just said, and the courage to be out front, to call balls and strikes, and to call out those that are responsible.

00:10:59.820 Polluters should pay. 0.98

00:11:00.980 Yeah.

00:11:01.120 But they're socializing the cost.

00:11:02.520 Econ 101.

00:11:03.420 Econ 101 on all of us.

00:11:05.700 So the question is, why?

00:11:07.320 Is it just simply because it's electorally ill-advised to be so candid?

00:11:13.420 Is it because of the corruption that is sort of imbued in the system?

00:11:17.560 It's the unwillingness to take the risk to be more resolved in this space?

00:11:23.740 Is it just what we've come to expect, and that is big money influencing, having outsized influence?

00:11:30.180 Boom, big money having outsized influence.

00:11:32.440 If you set up an enormous armada of phony front groups, and you put Madison Avenue-tested fake messaging through that, and you backstop it with literally billions of dollars in dark money into Congress, into the back pocket of Mitch McConnell so that he can, through super PACs, drop ads on Democrats, you put that whole machine together, and up against it, you have Democrats being, like, well-made.

00:12:00.180 Meaning, and talking about polar bears, it's, like, totally not a fair fight.

00:12:04.000 It's the panzer tanks versus the Polish cavalry.

00:12:07.120 You just don't have a chance.

00:12:09.300 So we need to be much better about it.

00:12:11.980 The good news is we don't have to build the apparatus of lies.

00:12:15.660 All we have to do is build a much more adept and sharp apparatus to point out the lies.

00:12:20.940 Well said.

00:12:21.520 And will people see what has been done to them when they understand what did, what was his name?

00:12:27.000 Harvey used to say, the end of the story?

00:12:28.820 Yeah, of course.

00:12:29.800 Yeah.

00:12:30.340 And that's the end of the story.

00:12:31.400 That's the end of the story.

00:12:32.240 You got lied to.

00:12:33.040 Yeah.

00:12:33.360 You got lied to at an industrial scale.

00:12:35.000 Peace to the planet.

00:12:39.160 I go by the name of Charlemagne the God.

00:12:40.560 And guess what?

00:12:41.160 I can't wait to see y'all at the third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival.

00:12:45.400 That's right.

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00:12:54.600 We got the R&B Money Podcast with Tank and Jay Valentine.

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00:13:08.140 And many more will be on that stage live.

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00:13:42.780 The Big Guests continue on Las Culturistas.

00:13:46.060 This week, it's the very funny Amy Poehler.

00:13:48.880 Don't overthink it.

00:13:49.740 They talk water.

00:13:50.660 We did not drink water growing up.

00:13:52.500 Water was not a thing.

00:13:53.780 Parenting.

00:13:54.380 You got teen boys.

00:13:55.640 This is like the black diamond of parenting.

00:13:58.100 And of course.

00:13:59.300 I don't think so, honey.

00:14:00.420 Horror movies.

00:14:01.340 Okay.

00:14:01.680 Okay?

00:14:02.320 Amy Poehler is on Las Culturistas.

00:14:06.040 The latest episode is out now.

00:14:08.380 Listen to Las Culturistas on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.

00:14:13.360 That's the fun part about being an artist that you need to have the patience for finding your pen.

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00:16:50.520 So we're all dealing with the consequences.

00:17:04.280 Of course, you know, as a governor of California that's dealt with more natural disasters than most governors, and I think Jerry Brown could have said that prior to me.

00:17:13.140 And in the last 10 years, we've experienced some of the worst wildfires in U.S. history, not just California history.

00:17:19.100 Obviously, the wildfires in Southern California that occurred in dead of winter.

00:17:25.240 Nine months, the driest conditions we've experienced down there in modern history.

00:17:31.180 And in January, with 100-mile-an-hour winds attached to a fire, we experienced a loss of 13,000 plus properties.

00:17:41.620 The issue of insurance, by definition, is top of mind.

00:17:45.040 It's the number one concern people have right now of accessing whatever insurance they had so they can recover their lives and get back on their feet.

00:17:54.340 But the idea of getting back and rebuilding, the number one concern is, can I get a mortgage now?

00:17:59.760 Because can that mortgage be attached to a requirement to have insurance?

00:18:03.680 Yeah.

00:18:04.060 And that's the cascade.

00:18:05.000 You can't predict the risk, so you can't get the insurance, so the buyer who you want to sell your property to can't get a mortgage, so you have to drop the price.

00:18:14.300 And you've got this property values crash that then cascades out through the economy.

00:18:19.860 And it has been warned of so clearly that the chairman of the Fed, Jay Powell of the Federal Reserve, came a month ago to the Senate, spoke to the Banking Committee, and said, you know, 10 to 15 years from now, there'll be whole regions of the United States where you can't get a mortgage anymore.

00:18:36.200 And he's a pretty conservative, I mean, not pretty, very conservative guy.

00:18:40.560 Very.

00:18:40.780 He said 10 to 15 years.

00:18:42.760 And not very green.

00:18:43.540 So it's just, look, the bottom line is climate risk is financial risk.

00:18:47.740 Yes.

00:18:48.240 And it's language, I think, hopefully, that could bring people to the table on fundamentally addressing the solutions.

00:18:53.840 Now, we talk about prevention.

00:18:55.680 We could talk about low-carbon green growth.

00:18:57.760 We could talk about decarbonizing our economy and changing the way we produce and consume energy.

00:19:02.920 But also, how do we address the situational reality?

00:19:06.800 10 or 15 years, obviously, we're looking at IPPC.

00:19:09.940 We're looking at 2045 goals and carbon neutrality.

00:19:13.900 In that timeline.

00:19:15.780 But beyond that, the insurance market and stabilizing it's not unique to Florida.

00:19:20.740 It's not unique to Louisiana.

00:19:22.000 I'm up in Montana, of all places.

00:19:23.940 They were discussing this as a top priority, obviously, in California.

00:19:27.000 Is there a federal frame?

00:19:28.580 Are you talking to your colleagues about a federal strategy to address some of these insurance concerns?

00:19:33.920 I think until we turn the corner on fossil fuel emissions, the insurance industry is going to continue looking out into uncertainty.

00:19:44.520 How bad does this get?

00:19:45.920 Every year that we add more fossil fuel emissions, we add to their uncertainty.

00:19:49.740 We add to their peril.

00:19:51.220 And so they're going to continue to withdraw away from that risk.

00:19:57.240 A board member of Allianz, which is one of the biggest insurance companies in the world, as you know, just recently wrote an article about how climate change means the end of the insurance industry business model.

00:20:10.840 And by the way, that takes down mortgages that require insurance.

00:20:15.280 And by the way, that also takes down a lot of financial transactions where there's an insurance component to a complex financial transaction.

00:20:22.100 So this cascades out very, very widely and very rapidly.

00:20:28.640 And we simply have to like start with first principles.

00:20:32.100 This is caused by fossil fuel emissions.

00:20:34.020 We're not dealing it, dealing with it properly because of fossil fuel mischief politically through their dark money and through their lives.

00:20:43.020 We've got to break the back of the fossil fuel disinformation machine, get back to legislating properly.

00:20:50.420 And then there's the possibility that the insurance industry says, OK, now we see an end through this.

00:20:56.960 We can work our way through how we redesign products so we can still provide coverage in Florida, for instance, which is really in terrible, terrible shape.

00:21:07.560 Well, it's interesting.

00:21:08.160 You know, I can't help when I when you bring up dark money to see to me how transparent and in the light of day that corruption is.

00:21:16.900 I just think about that infamous meeting with oil executives that then candidate Donald Trump had where he said, give me a billion dollars and I'll roll back basically the 20th century and give you what you want.

00:21:28.700 And he did.

00:21:29.360 And he did.

00:21:29.800 He's trying.

00:21:30.720 And is that a gross exaggeration?

00:21:31.880 It goes back to my opening question to you.

00:21:33.700 I mean, EPA, this is a wreck.

00:21:35.960 I mean, I've seen we went through Trump 1.0.

00:21:38.940 We went through Bush.

00:21:39.680 I mean, I remember I'm from my old office is in Ronald Reagan's office.

00:21:44.280 And so even going back to the James Watts days and I remember all the vandalism was being done on the environment back then.

00:21:49.940 Natural resources, not just in terms of environmental policy and waivers and the Clean Air Act and the like Endangered Species Act.

00:21:56.620 But this seems, from my perspective, we're just a few weeks into this administration.

00:22:02.900 This seems 10x the acceleration of that kind of vandalism and regressive policymaking.

00:22:10.300 Am I overstating that?

00:22:11.620 No, you are not.

00:22:12.620 Yeah, that's right.

00:22:39.040 To try to cook up a fake criminal case so they could use the fake criminal case as a justification to get a court order freezing the funds prior to seizing them.

00:22:51.580 The problem was that the career staff said, there's no crime here.

00:22:55.680 We can't do this.

00:22:56.580 So what did they do?

00:22:57.580 Fired the chief of the criminal division, went forward with the political U.S. attorney signing the pleading completely on his own.

00:23:03.460 Not one person in the office would sign it.

00:23:06.520 Then the judge threw it out.

00:23:09.040 So they're willing to break through barriers of bad behavior, including maladministration of the criminal laws to try to get harm done to climate initiatives and to try to earn the billion dollars or whatever it was that they spent on Trump.

00:23:30.760 We know it's north of 100 million.

00:23:32.160 That was disclosed.

00:23:33.240 It's disclosed.

00:23:33.880 But when you hide it through C4s and through super PACs and in it goes and who knows what went into his crypto fund.

00:23:39.920 I mean, the whole thing, it's just really hard to tell.

00:23:42.100 But he could easily have gotten the billion dollars.

00:23:44.160 We just don't know yet.

00:23:45.240 You know, it's interesting.

00:23:51.340 I think back and forgive me for going back to Ronald Reagan, because you have been a recent champion of trying to protect California's waivers under the Clean Air Act.

00:24:02.700 And just for those listening, it's an interesting fact, California's modern environmental movement.

00:24:08.380 There were many, many moments, obviously, offshore oil spill in Santa Barbara.

00:24:12.960 But Ronald Reagan really established the regulatory regime as governor in 1967 with the creation of the California Air Resource Board.

00:24:21.040 And in 1970, a Republican by the name of Richard Nixon gave Reagan the authority under that Clean Air Act to advance that waiver.

00:24:29.900 Same person that brought us the Endangered Species Act, among many other environmental rules, including the EPA itself.

00:24:39.040 Republicans.

00:24:40.020 I'm old enough to remember not that I wasn't around for that necessarily.

00:24:44.220 But I do remember another Republican, George H.W. Bush, on the issue of some issues around the ozone layer as well.

00:24:53.060 What the hell's happened in this country that we've lost sort of a bipartisan appreciation for clean air, clean water, having a life you can live out loud without asthma and being able to live longer and healthier lives?

00:25:08.220 I mean, there's a lot of rhetoric in this space.

00:25:10.180 Yeah.

00:25:10.340 But what the hell's happened, this new reality?

00:25:12.660 Well, I think the new reality has a lot to do with corruption and a lot to do with Citizens United, which unleashed political spending on an unprecedented level.

00:25:24.540 And nobody had a bigger incentive to spend money politically than a polluter.

00:25:31.820 Yeah.

00:25:32.760 And nobody had a bigger incentive to hide that it was them spending money politically than a polluter.

00:25:40.480 So you could go in and make your backroom deal with the Republican Party and say, you knock it off on climate, you knock it off on environmental enforcement.

00:25:48.900 We will give you all the money that you need, and nobody will know it's us.

00:25:52.540 It'll all come through Californians for Peace and Puppies and Prosperity or some phony front group that will prop up for you.

00:25:59.880 And the motives are huge.

00:26:01.480 The International Monetary Fund says that the subsidy for fossil fuel in the United States every single year from being allowed to pollute for free is $700 billion.

00:26:13.180 The subsidy.

00:26:14.220 The subsidy.

00:26:15.040 The American taxpayers are pain in the aggregate.

00:26:17.420 In the form of pollution harms that in proper economics are baked into the price of the product, but they're not in the price of the product.

00:26:28.920 So they're what economists call a negative externality, which is a form of subsidy.

00:26:33.040 Ask Milton Friedman, the great conservative economist, right?

00:26:36.500 And when you're fighting for a $700 billion subsidy, how much would you spend a year in politics to protect $700 billion?

00:26:43.400 I mean, the number goes through the roof.

00:26:44.780 It's astronomical.

00:26:45.400 So the notion that they could have given a billion dollars to Trump, the notion they could spend $10 billion a year influencing Congress is completely plausible when you're playing for stakes of that magnitude.

00:26:58.400 It wasn't that long ago that these guys made $63 billion net profit in 90 days.

00:27:05.600 Yeah.

00:27:06.000 With some of the most egregious gas spiking we've ever experienced in U.S. history with no accountability, zero accountability.

00:27:13.820 As the price of the barrel of oil was going down, the price of gasoline was going up, and there were no new regulatory impositions or fees attached to that.

00:27:25.520 That's the thing about this line that Republicans like to utter, that, you know, what we need is energy independence.

00:27:36.080 We will never have energy independence in the United States of America with fossil fuel because the price is not set in America.

00:27:47.260 Thank you.

00:27:47.400 The price is set by a foreign cartel.

00:27:49.900 That's exactly where that $62 billion came from.

00:27:52.520 Yeah.

00:27:53.040 Putin comes over the border.

00:27:54.440 Prices spike in OPEC.

00:27:56.120 And instead of being loyal to their American customers and keeping the prices where they were doing just fine, they ramped their prices up to meet the cartel price and gouged and gouged and gouged and made the biggest profits in the history of the corporation.

00:28:12.640 Yeah.

00:28:13.120 And somehow they had the American people, hardworking folks, defending these oil companies, despite the fact they were directly being fleeced by these same folks, the same petro dictators overseas that were determining domestic policy, not just influencing foreign policy.

00:28:30.260 Well, that climate denial machine got turned on full blast to say that this was Joe Biden's fault.

00:28:35.960 Well said.

00:28:36.500 And we did not have, and the president then, President Biden, did not have a strategy to fight back.

00:28:43.140 Now, ultimately, they went for the clawback legislation.

00:28:46.560 And by fighting for the clawback legislation, they actually turned that issue where actually people started to blame the fossil fuel industry, particularly once they'd seen those profit reports.

00:28:58.100 So we were able to turn that issue, but it took some willingness to fight.

00:29:03.200 And it took a while before the Biden administration got around to where they were willing to fight back.

00:29:08.460 There were months in which there was a one-way street of public information all saying Bidenflation, Biden gas crisis, Biden did this.

00:29:17.960 Which is a great irony, because under the Biden administration, we were never more energy independent in terms of net exports.

00:29:24.680 I think it's between 13.3 or 4 billion, a million barrels a day that we're exporting, more than Trump administration ever exported.

00:29:32.680 We're also producing more clean energy and green energy.

00:29:35.340 And I want to compliment you on the IRA, the $369 billion, the up to a trillion dollars, we'll see where it counts up to, of tax credits and obviously the infrastructure bill.

00:29:46.200 Are you seeing the benefit?

00:29:47.440 There's been a lot of, you know, I'm talking to Ezra Klein on the podcast, you know, where he thought the mistake of those bills, it wasn't attached to streamlining and green tape and addressing the issue of a regulatory thicket in terms of advancing those alternative energy strategies.

00:30:04.440 We could have done more, but right now you're seeing an awful lot of Republicans, senators and congressmen coming into John Thune, coming into Speaker Johnson and saying,

00:30:16.460 Hold on.

00:30:16.940 Hold on, not so fast.

00:30:19.000 This is a factory in my district.

00:30:21.860 This is a factory where I've got employees.

00:30:23.800 This is an investment where I was there when we cut the ribbon.

00:30:26.700 Not so fast.

00:30:27.740 So I think we did a fairly good job there.

00:30:30.920 It just isn't enough because you simply can't have a competition for energy in which one side, the polluting side, pollutes for free and gets a $700 billion negative externality subsidy and the other side has to fight.

00:30:50.440 And plus, with that huge subsidy, they're attacking the other side constantly in the public media, lying about them, attacking politicians.

00:30:58.840 It's a very, very tough environment.

00:31:00.880 I will tell you, Governor, if the United States of America had the vehicle efficiency standards that California has, the carbon price that California has, if our national energy policy was as good as California's, we would be on our way through this problem.

00:31:17.680 We would have a much wider pathway to climate safety.

00:31:21.760 As it is, it is a very narrow path, and we've got to fight really hard to make sure that we succeed.

00:31:28.920 Well, I appreciate that.

00:31:30.380 And again, it goes back to my compliments, and they weren't lightly extended to you, for being a fierce champion of protecting our hard-earned status because of those waivers that have allowed us to advance our clean car goals, to allow us to have an influence, to support other states' efforts, these 177 states.

00:31:48.500 We call them because we're joining forces.

00:31:50.800 We're one of them in Rhode Island.

00:31:51.880 We're right behind you.

00:31:52.720 God bless.

00:31:53.280 And all the other climate alliances we've created, not just in the United States, but also internationally in the MOU under two coalitions and the like.

00:32:03.220 But let me ask you just in closing, there's one major conference coming up.

00:32:07.360 It's COP, what we refer to as COP30.

00:32:09.400 What is COP, what does COP30 represent, and do you think it represents this next big international climate?

00:32:16.020 What do you think this moment represents, Trump, Trumpism?

00:32:19.220 What do you think we represent, you, your state, Rhode Island, California represent to the international community at this critical moment as well?

00:32:27.560 What we are seeing is a long litany of fossil fuel lies about what our future is going to be on a collision course with the insurance industry's look at what our future is going to be.

00:32:44.080 The fossil fuel industry can lie for free.

00:32:47.340 The insurance industry makes trillion-dollar bets on getting it right and has fiduciary responsibilities to do its best.

00:32:55.440 And the insurance industry is predicting real calamity with that cascade through real estate markets and into world economic meltdowns.

00:33:05.400 So if, in Brazil, at the COP, we are focusing on that insurance risk and what it means for real estate markets, according to The Economist magazine, a $25 trillion hit to the world's largest asset class, real estate.

00:33:21.400 If we can focus on that, then we can focus our minds adequately to find that narrow pathway to climate safety.

00:33:28.300 If it's more nebulous talk about ambitions and, you know, green this and all, you know, it's like, no.

00:33:36.380 Now we're down to a very narrow path.

00:33:38.520 We've got to nail this if we're going to leave our children and grandchildren a pathway to climate safety.

00:33:43.940 I appreciate it.

00:33:44.560 It's interesting.

00:33:45.260 I mean, just in closing, I appreciate, I really appreciate, I mean, again, anyone listening appreciates the insurance pressures they're under.

00:33:51.520 The issue of affordability is the issue of our time.

00:33:54.280 It's defined the last few years, I think it had big and outsized influence, clearly, in the election, not just here, but around the globe.

00:34:00.920 But the issue of insurance and climate and connecting that dot, I think, is profound.

00:34:05.740 And so I'm very grateful.

00:34:06.920 Thank you, Senator, for taking the time.

00:34:07.860 Well, you're living it.

00:34:08.640 Thank you, Governor.

00:34:09.380 Thank you.

This is Gavin Newsom - April 22, 2025

And, This is How Climate Change is Coming For All Of Us

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