California governor rebukes Donald Trump in warning of 'immediate and genuine risk' of climate change, nuclear weapons and poisoned politics

In his final State of the State address, long-serving governor Jerry Brown issued a pointed message

Jerry Brown delivers his final state of the state address in Sacramento, California (REUTERS/Fred Greave)

California Governor Jerry Brown used his final State of the State address to warn of imminent peril from climate change and nuclear weapons, drawing a sharp contrast to Donald Trump.

“Our world, our way of life, our system of governance — all are at immediate and genuine risk. Endless new weapons systems, growing antagonism among nations, the poison in our politics, climate change,” Mr Brown said before a joint sessions of the California Legislature in Sacramento, with potential successors looking on.

Offered in the final year of his fourth term leading America’s most populous state, Mr Brown’s cautionary remarks echoed some long-standing themes.

He has aggressively pursued state-level policies to limit the effects of climate change, positioning California as a global leader in contrast to the President's scepticism of climate science. California has also enacted policies shielding immigrants from deportation in deliberate defiance of the Trump administration.

“Despite what is widely believed by some of the most powerful people in Washington, the science of climate change is not in doubt,” Mr Brown said.

And his reference to destructive weapons implicitly rebuked the Trump administration, which has dangled the threat of a nuclear strike over a belligerent North Korea. The President himself has hinted at annihilating the country and taunted Pyongyang with a reference to his “nuclear button”.

Shortly before Mr Brown’s speech, his official account shared a tweet from former Secretary of Defence William Perry, noting that the “Doomsday Clock” managed by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — a symbolic representation of the world’s proximity to disaster — had ticked to two minutes to midnight because “world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change”.

Mr Brown delivered a keynote address at a 2015 symposium focused on the Doomsday Clock, warning of the “catastrophic consequences” of climate change and nuclear arms competition.