SANTA ROSA, Calif. — For the past three years, countries and companies around the world have looked to California as a counterweight to the Trump administration’s aggressive dismantling of efforts to combat climate change.
But this past week, as wildfires burned across the state — fires that scientists say have been made worse by a changing climate — and as at least five large carmakers sided with President Trump’s plan to roll back California’s climate pollution standards, the state’s status as the vanguard of environmental policy seemed at the very least diminished.
The state’s leaders found themselves both witnessing firsthand the eff