The Brief

The United Nations climate summit in Dubai promises no shortage of drama in its final days — in part because negotiations over whether or not to phase out global fossil fuel use appear to have collapsed. One major goal of this year’s conference, known as COP28, is a “global stocktake” documenting the world’s climate progress and next steps on climate action. But as of Monday, any reference to ending oil and gas use had disappeared from the draft text, leading to widespread anger among climate advocates. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore declared that the conference was “on the verge of complete failure.”

But the well-publicized debate over fossil fuels threatens to overshadow another major question dogging negotiations as the clock runs out: whether or not world leaders can agree on how to adapt their countries’ infrastructure to withstand global warming. As climate-driven disasters continue to make headlines around the world, the fate of millions in especially vulnerable regions such as Africa and Southeast Asia hinges on this question.

Though hundreds of international negotiators have spent the past fortnight tangling over a convoluted document that outlines how countries will adapt to climate change, they haven’t yet reached consensus on who exactly will pay for the phenomenally expensive undertaking — or even how to define successful climate adaptation in the first place. As the end of the conference approaches, stakeholders who spoke to Grist described the most recent draft text of the so-called global goal on adaptation as “watered-down,” “vague,” and “confusing.”

Get caught up on COP28

What is COP28? Every year, climate negotiators from around the world gather under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to assess countries’ progress toward reducing carbon emissions and limiting global temperature rise.

The 28th Conference of the Parties, or COP28, is taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, between November 30 and December 12 this year.

• Read more: The questions and controversies driving this year’s conference

What happens at COP?

Part trade show, part high-stakes negotiations, COPs are annual convenings where world leaders attempt to move the needle on climate change.

While activists up the ante with disruptive protests and industry leaders hash out deals on the sidelines, the most consequential outcomes of the conference will largely be negotiated behind closed doors. Over two weeks, delegates will pore over language describing countries’ commitments to reduce carbon emissions, jostling over the precise wording that all 194 countries can agree to.

What are the key issues at COP28 this year?

Global stocktake: The 2016 landmark Paris Agreement marked the first time countries united behind a goal to limit global temperature increase. The international treaty consists of 29 articles with numerous targets, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing financial flows to developing countries, and setting up a carbon market. For the first time since then, countries will conduct a “global stocktake” to measure how much progress they’ve made toward those goals at COP28 and where they’re lagging.

Fossil fuel phaseout or phasedown: Countries have agreed to reduce carbon emissions at previous COPs, but have not explicitly acknowledged the role of fossil fuels in causing the climate crisis until recently. This year, negotiators will be haggling over the exact phrasing that signals that the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels. They may decide that countries need to phase down or phase out fossil fuels or come up with entirely new wording that conveys the need to ramp down fossil fuel use.

• Read more: ‘Phaseout’ or ‘phasedown’? Why UN climate negotiators obsess over language

Loss and damage: Last year, countries agreed to set up a historic fund to help developing nations deal with the so-called loss and damage that they are currently facing as a result of climate change. At COP28, countries will agree on a number of nitty-gritty details about the fund’s operations, including which country will host the fund, who will pay into it and withdraw from it, as well as the makeup of the fund’s board.

• Read more: The difficult negotiations over a loss and damage fund

The latest text is “much weakened,” said Pratishtha Singh, a policy analyst at the Canadian chapter of the Climate Action Network, an international advocacy organization. “It’s far from enough in terms of what’s needed by developing countries.”

The “global goal on adaptation” is a sweeping framework that is supposed to guide how the world prepares for floods, fires, droughts, and other climate disasters. It’s also one of the last and biggest puzzle pieces in the implementation of the landmark Paris Agreement. The 2015 accord had three main pillars: mitigating future climate change by reducing carbon emissions, adapting to future climate disasters, and redressing the loss and damage that can’t be prevented. In the years since it was signed, countries have set goals for cutting carbon emissions and, much more recently, committed hundreds of millions of dollars to a loss-and-damage fund, but they haven’t yet agreed on a framework for climate adaptation.

This year’s COP is the final deadline for putting that framework together, but talks have moved at a snail’s pace in Dubai as negotiators clash over key issues. Despite holding at least eight technical discussions on the adaptation goal earlier this year, negotiators failed to agree on a draft document by the end of the conference’s first week, a sign of dismal progress. A parallel discussion about how vulnerable countries should design their national adaptation plans also broke down, and negotiators have punted that debate to a meeting in Bonn, Germany, next summer.

The reasons for the logjam are multiple. For one, the geopolitics of adaptation finance are highly contentious. In the past, rich countries in Europe and North America have promised to support adaptation in more vulnerable countries, but they have overwhelmingly failed to meet their previous commitments — and even those commitments were hundreds of billions of dollars short of what experts agree is needed. Negotiators from Africa and Southeast Asia entered the adaptation talks at COP28 seeking an acknowledgment that wealthy nations need to do more, plus a mechanism for monitoring international aid, which they say will help ensure that rich countries don’t renege on their funding commitments. Rich countries, however, sought to restrict the final agreement to a discussion of how to develop and implement adaptation policy.

“The main issue is the financial part,” said Idy Niang, a Senegalese negotiator who represents a bloc of the world’s least economically developed countries, during the first week of COP28. “We are not satisfied with the proposal coming from developed countries.”

The most recent draft text includes a lengthy discussion of adaptation finance, including a call for rich countries to pay more and a vague nod to their past failures, but it doesn’t include any clear commitment from wealthy nations. Nor does it outline any mechanism for tracking and monitoring adaptation aid.

An earlier version included a provision that called for rich countries to provide at least $400 billion in adaptation finance per year by 2030, which would have represented a more than tenfold increase from recent years. But this line disappeared in later talks, as did any reference to equity principles underscoring developed countries’ responsibility to provide adaptation funding. Emilie Beauchamp, a climate policy expert at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canada-based environmental think tank, said such an agreement was a nonstarter for many nations.

“It’s not possible,” she told Grist. “This is an absolute red line for the developed countries.” She called the outcome on finance “quite disappointing.”

A second sticking point in the talks is the question of how to define successful adaptation. Outlining clear targets for adaptation is highly technical and challenging. Unlike goals for mitigating climate change, which can be pegged to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or global temperature increase, adaptation responses vary depending on local conditions. There’s no universal yardstick that countries can use to compare their progress. Adaptation efforts on a small island, for instance, look very different compared to a large urban city.

“Climate finance is messy, but the global goal on adaptation is even messier,” said Katherine Browne, a researcher at the Stockholm Environmental Institute who studies adaptation. “The problems with finance are political, but the problems with the goal are technical, because they’re trying to find a way to measure something that basically everyone agrees can’t be measured.”

The final framework needs to lay out a system for gauging progress on disaster resilience, but the term “adaptation” is so broad that negotiators have struggled to reach consensus on what categories of adaptation to include, or about how to measure the value of any given infrastructure project. The most recent text contains seven targets to meet by 2030, including a group of core themes for adaptation projects. These include food and water security, disaster readiness, universal healthcare, and land conservation.

But these broad targets lack specificity and include language like “substantially” reducing poverty, “increasing” infrastructure resilience, and “reducing climate impacts on ecosystems.”

“The language is vague,” said Sandeep Chamling Rai, an adaptation expert with the nonprofit World Wildlife Fund. “Everything is there, but nothing is there.”

Given the unquantifiability inherent in the language, negotiators at COP28 are struggling to come up with a system allowing them to measure progress toward these goals. The best they’ve been able to do is punt the question to future COPs: Negotiators agreed to create a two-year working group that will sift through hundreds of potential adaptation “indicators” and try to create a global standard. These indicators might include the fatality rate for climate disasters, the percent of a population with access to clean water, or the number of acres of forested land in a country.

The fact that adaptation has stalled out even as other issues move forward is a grim sign for vulnerable countries, said Beauchamp of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

“If you look at the broader COP … you have the loss-and-damage issue, which is zooming,” she said. “Adaptation, there’s nothing. It’s basically saying that the world does not care about the lives and ecosystems of people who are on the front lines of the climate crisis.”

This is ironic, because the question of whether or not rich nations should help less fortunate countries with climate adaptation has never been that contentious on its own, compared to the jostling over emissions reductions and funding for loss and damage. Unlike the latter, which amounts to paying what are essentially climate reparations, adaptation finance is often seen as a natural extension of the sustainable development framework that guides many forms of international aid.

Negotiators have set up several adaptation funds at previous COPs. Some of them, like the “Least Developed Countries Fund” and the “Special Climate Change Fund,” have been around for more than 20 years. A group of developed countries including Canada and Norway agreed to replenish these bank accounts last week with a new contribution of $174 million.

The problem is that the total amount of money in all these funds isn’t even close to what poorer countries need, and spending has plateaued in recent years. Global adaptation needs are outpacing adaptation finance by as much as $366 billion per year, according to the latest U.N. data, and the need is only growing as the world continues to warm.

At the same time, rich countries such as the United States have failed to follow through on their prior pledges to fund adaptation: A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, found that international adaptation finance declined by around 15 percent between 2020 and 2021 — a time when it was supposed to be skyrocketing. Even global institutions like the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund only give out a few million dollars at a time for resilience projects. That’s enough to restore a small mangrove forest in Guinea-Bissau or build a wastewater treatment plant in Barbados, but not to armor a city against sea-level rise or help a country’s farming sector prepare for droughts.

Another reason for the lag in funding is that the private sector has little incentive to invest in adaptation projects. Many banks and investors have backed solar farms and carbon capture projects across the developing world, because these initiatives promise future financial returns when people buy electricity or trade carbon credits. The same can’t be said for sea walls, desalination plants, and coastal conservation areas, which is why adaptation makes up only a quarter of all international climate finance.

While the most recent draft text obliquely nods to the need for scaled-up private finance, climate advocates who spoke to Grist called this a red herring. Singh, of the Climate Action Network, said such language is “wild and unacceptable,” given both private funding’s insufficiency compared to government-scale financing and the potential for private ventures to saddle developing countries with burdensome debt.

The United States, meanwhile, is championing the private sector as an adaptation savior. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry unveiled a report last week arguing that adaptation is profitable for the private sector, because companies can make money by protecting their supply chains against disasters, for instance, or by investing in government adaptation projects.

“I think a ton of the incentives already exist, and I think the private sector is just awakening to those in a really significant way,” said Nathanial Matthews, the CEO of the Global Resilience Partnership, the coalition of governments and nonprofits that produced the report. He pointed to investors who issued loans to help build a flood-proof highway tunnel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and made money back through toll revenues.

But vulnerable countries can’t close the adaptation gap without significant public funding from wealthy nations, and that funding has yet to materialize.The next big test will arrive at next year’s COP29, where countries are hoping to ink a major new international funding agreement that will funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to adaptation.

“We’re debating all these things about adaptation, but there’s absolutely no obligation for countries to implement it and to take it on,” said Beauchamp. “This framework would give a clear signal that the world actually cares about adaptation, but at the moment, we’re putting that signal in the bin.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/international/cop28-dubai-climate-adaptation/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

California is considering prohibiting the fabrication and installation of artificial-stone countertops — effectively banning the products — in response to an epidemic of the fatal lung disease silicosis among workers who cut, grind and polish countertop slabs before they are fitted into homes and businesses.

Silicosis is caused by the inhalation of pulverized silica, one of the most common minerals on earth. Public Health Watch, LAist and Univision were the first to disclose a silicosis cluster among Southern California countertop fabrication workers in December 2022. A year later, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board adopted an emergency temporary standard that required the employers of such workers — most of whom are young, immigrant men — to suppress toxic silica dust with water and take other protective measures. That standard became permanent in December 2024.

Five months after the initial stories were released by Public Health Watch and its media partners, the California Department of Public Health had confirmed 69 cases of silicosis statewide. As of April 8, that number had grown to 542, with 29 deaths. More than half of these cases — 279 — came from Los Angeles County.

What is silica?

The silica that threatens the fabricators’ lungs comes from quartz, which is crushed and mixed with resins and pigments to make artificial stone — also known as engineered stone — a cheaper, more versatile alternative to natural stone like granite or marble. The ingredients are poured into molds, a process that allows for mass production of countertop slabs.

When a slab is cut, ground or polished in preparation for installation, a pestilent powder is released into the air and drawn into workers’ lungs, where it collects and causes slow suffocation. There is no cure for silicosis; the only procedure that can buy some victims time is a double-lung transplant, which is expensive, cumbersome and rarely prolongs life beyond 10 years.

Why is California considering banning engineered stone?

The Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is scheduled to take video testimony from fabrication workers suffering from silicosis at its meeting Thursday in Santa Rosa. It is not expected to vote on a ban, however, any sooner than its May 21 meeting in Los Angeles.

Should California choose to ban engineered stone, it would be the first state to do so. Australia banned the material in 2024 after experiencing a silicosis outbreak that claimed an estimated 1,000 victims.

The standards board is required to respond to a petition submitted in December by the Western Occupational and Environmental Medical Association, a nonprofit that represents more than 600 physicians and other health experts in seven states. In that petition, the association asked the board to “prohibit all fabrication and installation tasks ... on engineered stone that contains more than 1% crystalline silica. This action is necessary in light of the continuing epidemic of silicosis that is causing disease and death among California fabrication workers ...” Engineered-stone countertops typically contain more than 90% crystalline silica, the most common and dangerous form of the mineral; another form, amorphous silica, is not believed to pose serious health risks.

Lawyers representing hundreds of sick workers and their families in litigation against countertop manufacturers say engineered stone cannot be handled safely.

“Artificial stone is too toxic to be safely fabricated,” said Raphael Metzger, who practices in Long Beach and won a $52.4 million jury verdict — the nation’s first — against 34 manufacturers in August 2024. “Every week I meet with about a half-dozen fabricators, many of whom have silicosis.”

“The silicosis crisis is not a failure of rules — it’s a failure of a product,” said James Nevin, based in Novato, California. The medical association’s “proposed ban works because it removes that hazard at its source. Every jurisdiction that has reduced disease has done so by eliminating crystalline silica artificial stone itself — not by pretending it can be used safely.”

Countertop manufacturers are not standing by quietly. In a March 27 letter to the standards board, Cosentino North America, part of Spain’s Cosentino Group, said, “Effective [workplace safety] standards already exist, but there are non-compliant fabrication shop owners that do not implement them and put their workers at risk.” With “the correct controls in place,” the company said, “engineered stone can be fabricated safely.”

Cal/OSHA enforces silica rule

California’s silica rule is enforced by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA. In a statement to Public Health Watch, a Cal/OSHA spokesperson said the agency had opened more than 140 inspections of fabrication shops since the emergency temporary standard took effect in December 2023. Those inspections unearthed more than 580 violations, the spokesperson said.

In a presentation to the standards board at its March meeting, Eric Berg, Cal/OSHA’s deputy chief for health, research and standards, said the agency had assessed a total of $1.8 million in penalties against fabrication shop owners alleged to have violated the silica rule. Stop-work orders were issued to 26 shops where dry-cutting of artificial stone — a prohibited practice — or inadequate respiratory-protection measures were observed, Berg said.

Last year, Cal/OSHA estimated that the state had 920 fabrication shops, employing some 4,600 workers.

It's unclear which way the standards board will go when the proposed ban comes up for a vote. In a February 27 letter, Chairman Joseph M. Alioto Jr. urged district attorneys in the seven counties that account for nearly 95% of the silicosis cases in California to pursue criminal charges against violators.

“Please do not be misled by the misdemeanor classification of [silica violations],” Alioto wrote. “These are no ordinary misdemeanor cases, as the science bears out. Dry-cutting on its own will result in serious injury in a majority of cases. That means that every successful misdemeanor you prosecute will shutter a violating employer and save workers’ lives.”

The medical association on whose petition the board must rule, however, argued that “education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by” engineered stone.

After Australia banned the material, alternatives with the same “quality, look and feel” but free of crystalline silica took its place, the petition says. If the standards board follows Australia’s lead, “it is highly likely that these safer products will be made immediately available in the California market, without significant economic consequences for fabrication businesses and their workers.”

Jim Morris is executive director and editor-in-chief of Public Health Watch, a nonprofit investigative news organization.

There’s no shortage of great coffee shops in LA. It’s maybe something we’re especially known for — L.A., after all, is home to many a viral matcha moment and Instagrammable coffee shop interior. But the city also houses several unique cafés that make your coffee break feel a little more like a break from reality.

These five coffee shops may part from tradition, but they certainly don’t fall short on the cool factor, or on quality.

Aquarela (Downtown) 

Aquarela’s stunning marble lobby was completed in 1931.

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Courtesy CalEdison

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DTLA is home to many wonderful coffee shops, but none can rival the beauty and splendor of Aquarela, a café nestled inside the marble halls of the historic CalEdison building. Here, you’ll find rare Brazilian farm-direct coffees, plus tropical smoothies and small snacks like pão de queijo (cheesy, savory bread bites). Beyond the stunning Art Deco digs, the specialty drinks are the real draw here — the Batida, a nod to the popular Brazilian cocktail, blends iced coffee with coconut, banana and condensed milk to transport you directly to the beach in Rio.

Cafe on 27 (Topanga)

Toast and views from Cafe on 27

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Courtesy Cafe on 27

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There’s a certain je ne sais quoi to drinking coffee while forest bathing. Cafe on 27, a treehouse-style brunch spot in Topanga Canyon, delivers this experience wonderfully. The sprawling, tree-blanketed patio opens out directly into the canyon, where verdant hills are the only thing you’ll see for miles.

Like any good treehouse would, Cafe on 27 serves organic coffees that are roasted on-site. Matcha, hot tea and freshly-squeezed orange juice are also on offer, alongside brunch staples like avocado toast, crab cake benedicts, pancakes and Nutella waffles. Note: reservations are required on weekends and holidays, and highly recommended on weekdays, otherwise expect an hour-plus wait.

Casita Basqueria (Malibu)

If you haven’t yet been to Casita Basqueria, the rustic Malibu cottage serving coffee, Basque grocery staples and often sold-out sandwiches, a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway is in order. Tucked in Surf Canyon among a small commune of artisanal retailers and workshops, Casita Basqueria makes for a wonderful weekend stop for brunch and coffee. Get there right at 11 a.m., if you can; the bocadillo sandwiches, which are made in limited quantities on fresh pan de cristal, are known to vanish within 20 minutes of opening. Sandwich offerings rotate daily, but the espresso machine can always be counted on to whip up a good latte or cappuccino.

The best time to show up to Casita Basqueria is right at 11 a.m.

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Courtesy Casita Basqueria

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Granada (Echo Park) 

Granada’s airy digs and delicious coffee catapulted it into instant stardom.

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Cecilia Seiter/LAist

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You could easily walk by Granada, L.A.'s newest coffee scene darling, without realizing that there’s a buzzy cafe nestled amid the towering Victorians of residential Angeleno Heights. But here it is, up an unsuspecting driveway and into the first floor of owners’ Sydney Wayser and Isaac Watters’ home, a concept made possible by LA County’s Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO) program.

It’s easy to see why Granada so swiftly achieved the viral status it did. The light-filled living room and locally-crafted furniture beckon guests to sit and stay. The garden, lush with palms and a pomegranate tree, also provides ample seating. An iced latte with whole milk will set you back $7 — par for the course in L.A. — but soaking in the sunlight filtering through the window while snacking on a pastry by baker Sasha Piligian (of Canyon Coffee and Chamberlain Coffee) feels like a fair trade. Connecting to the wifi here proves a journey, but if you can hotspot it, this is a fantastic place to knock out a few hours of work.

Speedster Café (Carson) 

Coffee and racecars make for an excellent pairing.

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Courtesy Porsche Experience Los Angeles

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Fuel up on espresso as Porsche 911 GT3s fly by at Speedster Café. Situated at the edge of the racetrack at the Porsche Experience Center, Speedster offers a range of espresso drinks, plus breakfast sandwiches on brioche buns, matcha lattes and wines by the glass. Both indoor and outdoor seating are available, and if you need something a little more filling, you can always head upstairs to eat lunch at Porsche’s sit-down restaurant, 917.

Los Angeles Unified support staff reached a labor deal with the district early Tuesday morning, hours before a strike was set to begin — meaning schools will remain open for nearly 400,000 students.

"The tentative agreement makes strides in addressing key issues raised by school workers in negotiations," SEIU Local 99 said in a statement Tuesday morning.

The union said the new agreement raises members' wages 24% and will rescind the recent layoff notices for hundreds of information technology workers. LAUSD confirmed the details of deal are still being worked out.

The district had previously reached new deals with its teachers union and its principals union over the weekend.

”Our commitments reflect the dedication of our entire workforce. We are grateful for the collaboration that made this possible and hopeful that this marks a new chapter of partnership," Andrés Chait, the acting superintendent, said in a statement Tuesday morning. "At the same time, we are clear-eyed about the challenges ahead and know that meeting them will require continued trust, shared responsibility, and a united focus on what matters most — our students."

How the deal came together

The unions had given the district an April 14 deadline to reach a deal, or face a walkout. A strike by all three would have shut down district schools and disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of students and the lives of families scrambling for child care.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass joined the negotiations with SEIU Local 99, which continued late Monday night. The deal was announced at 2 a.m. Tuesday.

The unions had been bargaining with the district over pay, benefits and additional support for students for more than a year. The members of each union voted overwhelmingly to give their leaders the power to call a strike after contract talks stalled.

The union’s members and the Los Angeles Unified school board must vote to approve the deal. The union said it would release more details of the deal at a news conference later Tuesday.

If voters were confused about who to support in California’s wide-open race for governor, Rep. Eric Swalwell’s exit amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct may leave them as mystified as ever.

Swalwell suspended his campaign Sunday evening and resigned from Congress Monday afternoon — a swift fall from power for one of the state’s leading candidates for governor.

He said he would “fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.”

In theory, one fewer Democratic candidate in the race should help liberal voters consolidate the field. But in a race that was already anyone’s to win, Swalwell’s exit has only “caused more confusion,” said political strategist Marva Diaz, who primarily works with Democrats but is not involved in any gubernatorial campaign.

“I’ve never seen something so in flux while ballots are about to drop,” she said.

Where things stand

Because Swalwell dropped out after a statutory deadline to formally withdraw from an election, his name will still appear on the June 2 primary election ballot. That makes it possible he’ll still get some votes, but his rivals are already seeking to scoop up as many of his supporters as possible.

Both billionaire climate advocate Tom Steyer and law professor and former Rep. Katie Porter circulated polls indicating they could both pick up a sizable portion of Swalwell’s potential voters. Pollsters with the Public Policy Institute of California and UC Berkeley both agreed Steyer and Porter were the most likely to benefit from prior Swalwell supporters.

But they may not be the only ones, and it’s not clear that either one of them will immediately surge into the lead. An independent campaign committee supporting San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan pulled in $12 million million in new and previously committed contributions from wealthy donors since Friday, committee spokesperson Matt Rodriguez said, indicating his backers see an opening.

They’re launching $4.5 million worth of TV and digital ads Tuesday. Mahan is one of the race’s lower-polling candidates, getting 3% of likely voters’ support in a poll commissioned last week by the state Democratic Party.

Until the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN last Friday published stories with explosive sexual misconduct allegations from four women, including a former staff member, Swalwell had consistently polled ahead of most other Democrats in the race for governor. He was often in a three-way tie for lead Democrat alongside Porter and Steyer, with each of them getting between 10% and 15% of voters polled, tied with or trailing the two leading Republicans, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.

What happens to his endorsments?

And though Swalwell counted among his supporters a sizable share of the Democratic establishment — his colleagues in Congress, major labor unions and other Sacramento interest groups — it was by no means a consensus. Now, after those groups have scrambled through emergency weekend meetings to pull their endorsements, they’ll have to slog through their internal procedures if they want to back another candidate for governor.

That gives voters fewer pointers on which candidate to back, Diaz said. Some organizations, she added, may be hesitant to endorse another candidate out of concern they, too, could have damaging backgrounds.

“Most people look to labor for guidance, especially on the Democratic side,” Diaz said. “When labor organizations are not working in tandem, it causes a lot of confusion.”

Swalwell was one of four Democrats the California Labor Federation jointly endorsed for governor, along with Porter, Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The federation, which could not reach consensus on any individual candidate, likely won’t be revisiting its other endorsements with Swalwell gone, president Lorena Gonzalez said.

But the Service Employees International Union, California Teachers Association and other heavyweights in Democratic politics which had endorsed Swalwell and then withdrew their support may not have time to go back to the drawing board to pick a new candidate. The teachers’ union’s endorsement process, for example, required a vote among hundreds of members from across the state; the union’s next such meeting isn’t scheduled until after the June 2 primary.

Representatives of both unions said they did not have any campaign updates Monday. A spokesperson for the California Professional Firefighters, another major Swalwell supporter, did not respond to inquiries.

Where his backers may throw their support

The effects of Swalwell’s exit on public polling of the race may not be seen for weeks. Donors often look to such measures of a candidate’s performance to decide who to back.

In the last survey UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies conducted of the governor’s race, in March, Swalwell’s supporters leaned more liberal and progressive, said institute co-director Eric Schickler. Swalwell also did better than other candidates among older voters and white voters.

Those voters cut a similar profile to Porter’s supporters, Schickler said, lending credence to the idea that his supporters would start following her.

“On the other hand, Porter has had trouble, for a visible politician, has had trouble winning over a lot of Democratic establishment figures in her own right,” he said. “If you look at the support, it’s a little more similar, but not so striking to say these supporters automatically go there.”

What about Swalwell's seat in Congress?

As for Swalwell’s congressional seat, it’s not clear when he’s stepping down. But he said he would work with his congressional staff to ensure they are able to meet the needs of his San Francisco East Bay district, where he was first elected in 2013.

Swalwell’s resignation Monday leaves the call for a special election to finish his term entirely at Newsom’s discretion, since the candidate filing deadline for the June primary has passed, according to the state election code.

Newsom’s office would not say Monday whether the governor will do so.

But if he calls for the election, the earliest date it could be held would be in mid-August, since state law requires it to take place between 126 and 140 days after the proclamation. If Newsom declines to call a special election, Swalwell’s seat will remain vacant until mid-January 2027, dealing a blow to the U.S. House Democrats who are already outnumbered by the Republican majority.

Because Swalwell opted to run for governor instead of retaining his seat in Congress, there are already seven candidates in the running to replace Swalwell in the 14th Congressional District.

CalMatters’ Yue Stella Yu contributed to this story.