Even before the Global Climate Action Summit got rolling on Wednesday, news began spewing from the San Francisco event.
The day began with the announcement of 300 new or recent commitments to climate action from an assortment of corporations, non-profits and state and local governments. (The list is actually an aggregation of commitments made over the last several months.)
Members of the movement known as We Are Still In gathered at the California Academy of Sciences to share new initiatives and spend the day workshopping ideas.
“We have the threat of our lifetime,” said Mindy Lubber, head of the Boston-based sustainable-business group, CERES. “We can meet it, we can beat it, despite the fact that one guy in Washington says, ‘We are not in.’”
The project was named as a repudiation of the Trump administration’s abandonment of the Paris climate accord, now signed on to by every nation in the world except for the United States. The drive is intended as affirmation that much of the U.S. is “still in,” represented by the 3,540 signatories to the pact.