DBL Partners joins California business delegation in support of the Paris Climate Agreement at COP 21

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

SACRAMENTO—California Gov­er­nor Edmund G. Brown Jr. and NextGen Cli­mate Founder and Pres­i­dent Tom Stey­er today announced a del­e­ga­tion of Cal­i­for­nia busi­ness lead­ers who will trav­el to the Unit­ed Nations COP 21 cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions in Paris to urge world lead­ers to reach a bold cli­mate change agree­ment. The delegation—which includes Cal­i­for­nia busi­ness lead­ers from the health­care, ener­gy, and finan­cial ser­vices industries—will share the lessons of California’s suc­cess in build­ing a vibrant clean ener­gy econ­o­my while pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment and reaf­firm the busi­ness community’s sup­port for strong action to address cli­mate change.

“We wel­come Cal­i­for­nia busi­ness­es as key allies in our efforts to halt dan­ger­ous cli­mate change,” said Gov­er­nor Brown.

“Cal­i­for­nia is show­ing the entire world how busi­ness and gov­ern­ment can come togeth­er to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis,” said Stey­er. “In Paris, this del­e­ga­tion will lever­age the suc­cess­es of the Cal­i­for­nia mod­el to make the pow­er­ful eco­nom­ic case for a strong agree­ment to address cli­mate change.”

Led by Gov. Brown and Stey­er, the del­e­ga­tion will include:

• Jim Mahoney, Glob­al Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions & Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Exec­u­tive, Bank of America
• K.R. Srid­har, Founder and CEO,Bloom Ener­gy
• Thad Hill, Pres­i­dent and CEO, Calpine
• Thad Miller, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Chief Legal Offi­cer and Sec­re­tary, Calpine
• Pasquale Romano, Pres­i­dent and CEO,Charge­Point
• Nan­cy Pfund, Founder and Man­ag­ing Part­ner, DBL Part­ners
• Sis­ter Susan Vick­ers, RSM,VP Cor­po­rate Respon­si­bil­i­ty, Dig­ni­ty Health
• Bernard J. Tyson, Chair­man and CEO of Kaiser Per­ma­nente, Kaiser Per­ma­nente
• Ray­mond J. Bax­ter, PhD,Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Com­mu­ni­ty Ben­e­fit, Research and Health Pol­i­cy, Kaiser Per­ma­nente
• David Crane, CEO, NRG Energy
• Antho­ny Ear­ley, Chair­man, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer and Pres­i­dent, PG&E Corporation
• Cathy Zoi, CEO, SunEdi­son Fron­tier Power
• Rob Dav­en­port, Chair­man, Sungevi­ty
• Lyn­don Rive, Co-Founder and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer,SolarCi­ty

Cli­mate change threat­ens both busi­ness and the glob­al econ­o­my, but tran­si­tion­ing to clean ener­gy pro­vides a crit­i­cal oppor­tu­ni­ty for sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth. A broad coali­tion of Cal­i­for­nia busi­ness lead­ers have made invest­ing in clean ener­gy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty a top pri­or­i­ty. Cal­i­for­nia busi­ness­es are lead­ing the world in build­ing the tech­nolo­gies and infra­struc­ture crit­i­cal to shift­ing to a com­plete­ly clean ener­gy economy—and as a result the state’s econ­o­my is grow­ing and car­bon emis­sions are falling. In 2013—the most recent year for which data is available—California’s GDP increased 2 per­cent while capped emis­sions decreased by almost 4 per­cent. Today, more than 430,000 Cal­i­for­ni­ans work in advanced ener­gy jobs and last year the state attract­ed more clean tech ven­ture cap­i­tal than the Euro­pean Union, the Unit­ed King­dom, and Chi­na combined.

The del­e­ga­tion will high­light California’s glob­al lead­er­ship on cli­mate change solu­tions and strong record of bring­ing diverse com­mu­ni­ties togeth­er to sup­port land­mark cli­mate laws. In advance of COP 21, Cal­i­for­nia has led a diverse coali­tion of more than 50 state, provin­cial, and city gov­ern­ments that are pledg­ing to cut green­house gas emis­sions 80 per­cent by 2050 through the Under2MOU. The Under2MOU builds on California’s suc­cess­ful cap-and-trade sys­tem and ener­gy effi­cien­cy stan­dards that pro­mote inno­va­tion and eco­nom­ic growth while cut­ting car­bon pollution.

For decades, Cal­i­for­nia has been a nation­al leader and glob­al on the environment—and a mod­el for how busi­ness and pol­i­cy­mak­ers can come togeth­er to com­bat cli­mate change. In Paris, the Gold­en State’s pro­gres­sive busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is using their eco­nom­ic pow­er to influ­ence the glob­al con­ver­sa­tion on cli­mate and call for a strong glob­al frame­work to avert the worst impacts of cli­mate change and build a clean­er, stronger economy.

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NextGen Cli­mate

NextGen Cli­mate is focused on bring­ing cli­mate change to the fore­front of Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. Found­ed by busi­nessper­son and phil­an­thropist Tom Stey­er in 2013, NextGen Cli­mate acts polit­i­cal­ly to pre­vent cli­mate dis­as­ter and pro­mote pros­per­i­ty for all Americans.

Tues­day, Decem­ber 1, 2015

CONTACT: NGC Press Office, 415–802-2423

or press@​nextgenclimate.​org