While boasting about the state’s low carbon and green growth last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his wish for California to dominate vehicle-to-grid technology.
“We want to move markets,” he said. “We want to dominate the next big global industry. This is the best and greatest opportunity for economic growth in development in our lifetimes. I don't know why we're so sheepish. I don't know why we're so naive to the opportunities to present themselves anew.”
Newsom made the comments during his closing remarks at Climate Week on Sept. 21.
“The opportunity now with electric vehicles and the vehicle-to-grid technology and the bidirectional opportunity of two-way charging creates opportunities for millions and millions of batteries on wheels,” he said.
Climate Week is sponsored by the United Nations (UN) Climate Action: Race to Zero and Resilience Forum and co-hosted by UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions. The Race to Zero and Race to Resilience Global Ambassador is Michael R. Bloomberg. The forum aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions.
“This vehicle-to-grid technology is not even that new. It's a question of scaling it, but also scaling our imagination. Once the mind is stretched, it never goes back to its original form. Let's stop this nonsense. Stop reading the editorial boards, the Wall Street Journal, and stop listening to the CEOs of these big corporations that have been destroying this planet, making it uninhabitable and sending us off a cliff,” Newsom ranted.
Newsom chided the Wall Street Journal editorial board because of an editorial that he alleged was written by the fossil fuel industry.
“Literally, the exact same talking points were used two weeks ago in the state of California when we were battling the most progressive and aggressive climate policy of any jurisdiction in the world,” he said. “By the way, we won. They lost. We passed the most aggressive rules and regulations, not ambition, of any jurisdiction anywhere in the world. Big oil lost and they're not used to losing.”
Currently, 16% of all new car purchases statewide are alternative fuel vehicles, according to data from the governor’s office, and a new law requires all new car purchases to be alternative fuel by 2035.
Newsom further pointed to events near the Rhine Valley, the Yangtze River, the banks of the Mississippi, Pakistan, the Colorado River, and Puerto Rico as evidence, while blasting conservatives.
“It's time to grow up,” he added. “It's time to call these folks out. It's time to take these guys on at Fox News. It's time to take these guys out in these editorial board rooms that have been subsidized and are wholly owned subsidiaries of these special interests that don't have your interests at heart. It's a serious moment in our history. The debate is over. Mother Nature joined it years ago, and you know it better than I do.”