Gavin Newsom’s message to world leaders in Munich: It’s time to start thinking about the next president.

“Donald Trump is temporary,” the California governor and likely presidential candidate said during a panel about climate change Friday at the Munich Security Conference. “He’ll be gone in three years.”

Newsom r has long positioned California as a durable counterweight to Trumpism, particularly on climate policies that California has expanded as the White House retreats. He carried a similar banner at an international climate conference in Brazil last year, casting California as America’s premiere climate mover in Trump’s absence.

While it’s not unusual for California governors to wield the state’s economic clout to shape global climate policy, Newsom’s advocacy for the state doubles as a pitch for himself, allowing him to practice his diplomatic acumen, fortify relationships with heads of state, and sharpen his pitch for a post-Trump foreign policy.

He is one of a half dozen potential Democratic presidential contenders offering a contrast to Vice President JD Vance’s scathing criticism of the continent in the same forum last year.

On Friday, global leaders suggested they, too, understand a leadership change is coming, though it is unclear if the next administration will be any more sympathetic to concerns about climate change.

Asked on a panel with Newsom about how to navigate the Trump administration’s rollback of climate policies, Vanuatu’s minister of climate adaptation noted other nations are already used to presidential elections shifting their relationship with the United States.

“We are waiting for the U.S. to come back on board,” Minister Ralph Regenvanu said. “It happened once. I think it will happen again.”