While national elected officials are still debating the issue, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Tuesday took his global climate change bandwagon to Europe, meeting with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair en route to a similar meeting Wednesday with newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. The topic in both places: how California and the two European Union nations can help each other fight greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The globetrotting supposedly in the long term will expand markets for the clean technology products needed in the global warming fight, but it comes as the governor has been subject to some criticism in the state capital for California’s still-big dependence on out-of-state coal-fired power supplies, which add to the GHG problem.

Before beginning his foreign venture, Schwarzenegger stopped by the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual convention in Los Angeles over the weekend to applaud the nation’s city leaders for their efforts to combat climate change. The mayors’ organization has made protecting the climate “a central part of its agenda,” the governor said.

“More than 500 mayors have signed the Climate Protection Agreement to meet Kyoto GHG standards by 2012,” Schwarzenegger said before leaving for Europe. “And with each new signature you build on our great momentum.”

Schwarzenegger’s visit with Blair in London follows a visit by the prime minister to California last July when the two leaders convened a meeting of business and energy industry leaders to discuss ways to reduce GHG emissions. The two politicians held similar meetings in London and toured an energy-efficient school in the British capital.

Schwarzenegger said California’s global warming laws have been strengthened by the partnership with the UK and others (Canada provinces and Australian states, for example). “These meetings give us the opportunity to celebrate our successes and discuss what comes next for the United Kingdom and California,” the California governor said.

In his campaign on climate change, Schwarzenegger has signed memorandums of understanding with five western states and three Canadian provinces, along with the state of Victoria in Australia. According to Schwarzenegger’s aides these agreements are important as a means of expanding markets for clean fuels, cars and emissions credits across borders. “They allow emission reductions at the lowest possible cost,” Schwarzenegger’s spokesperson said.

As Schwarzenegger was making his latest forays nationally and overseas, a report in the Sacramento Bee over the weekend challenged the governor’s administration over its continued reliance on power supplies from out-of-state coal-fired generation plants. The latest focused on the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the state’s largest user of electricity to pump water hundreds of miles, for continuing a contract for 275 MW of power from a coal-fired plant near Las Vegas, NV.

“It reflects the department’s business-as-usual attitude toward global warming and that’s not good enough,” according to the Bee‘s quote of V. John White, head of the Sacramento-based Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology. “They have an undistinguished history, and they ought to be looking at alternatives, such as solar panels.”

Schwarzenegger’s chief spokesperson on energy issues said the contract with the Reid Gardner coal-fired plant 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas was signed a long time ago, and it will not be renewed when it expires in 2013. In the meantime, DWR reportedly is installing more energy efficiency on its state water project system that uses and produces several thousand megawatts to operate the state’s vast aqueduct network for moving water from the north to the south.

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