CA Gov. Brown celebrates Under 2 MOU growth

California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced that with new signatories from German and Italy, the combined GDP of those endorsing the Under 2 MOU, a global pact to limit climate change, has now surpassed that of the United States.

The Federal Republic of Germany and regions Bavaria, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia, as well as Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, bring the total number of signatories to 57 jurisdictions spread across 19 countries. In addition to a combined GDP of $17.5 trillion, this figure brings the total population of people living under the MOU to 572 million.

"From Germany to Brazil to China and beyond, this pact is uniting the world's leaders around a common goal: preventing catastrophic changes to our climate," Brown said. "If enough cities, states, regions — and even countries — join us, we can overcome the sheer complacency that threatens the well-being of humanity itself."

The Under 2 MOU is an agreement amongst cities, states and countries that seeks to limit the average increase in global temperature to less than 2 degrees Celcius, at which point scientists estimate the effects would catastrophic. To achieve this, signatories commit to achieving emissions goals by 2050, either reducing emissions by 80 percent to 95 percent of their 1990 levels or reducing their per capita annual emissions to less than 2 metric tons.