Gov. Gavin Newsom is criticizing the United States for missing key United Nations climate talks, calling it doubling down on stupid. In an AP interview Tuesday at the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, Newsom warns that the U.S. risks losing economic power due to climate inaction. He highlights that while states like California are making efforts, the federal absence sends a negative message globally. Newsom points says even countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia are moving toward green energy. He emphasizes the urgency of addressing climate change, citing California's challenges with wildfires, droughts, and floods.

In some of the most agriculturally rich regions in the U.S., researchers from San Diego State University are working to understand how climate change is impacting heat in rural areas and the farmworkers who toil in them. They're putting sensors on workers to measure their heart rates and core body temperatures while they work and evaluating environmental temperatures to assess occupational heat risk. Rising temperatures, decreased water supplies and shifting crop patterns are changing microclimates and increasing exposure to extreme heat for farmworkers, who are already among the most vulnerable to it. The project aims to map rural heat islands to better protect California farmworkers from scorching heat.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill extending the state's cap-and-trade program through 2045. The program sets a declining limit on total planet-warming emissions in the state from major polluters. The new law potentially boosts carbon-removal projects and requires the program to align with California's target of achieving so-called carbon neutrality by 2045. Newsom also signed laws to speed up permitting for oil production in Kern County, refill a fund that covers the cost of wildfire damage when utility equipment sparks a blaze and allow the state's grid operator to partner with a regional group to manage power markets in western states.