Kamala Harris and Arnold Schwarzenegger join forces on climate

“I’m taking you to church,” Arnold Schwarzenegger told me.

“Have I sinned?” I asked.

“There’s a new organ. You have to hear it. The vice president might be coming too.”

We were inside Vienna’s Hofburg Palace, previously the seat of Austrian imperial power. The church in question was St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a national symbol.

I found myself in this peculiar situation because I’m writing a book about Assembly Bill 32, the California climate change law Schwarzenegger signed in 2006. For research, I was attending the 10th annual Austrian World Summit of the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, which supports accelerated action to reduce carbon pollution. The (former) vice president in question was California’s own Kamala Harris. A featured speaker at the 2026 gathering last month, she was standing across the palatial room, chatting amiably with Schwarzenegger’s aides and childhood friends from Thal, his hometown in Austria.

This is the parallel universe known as Arnold Land. Reentering it — two decades after I covered Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times — has been unmooring.

No combination of people (VP Harris and former Thal Mayor Peter Urdl?) or ideas (Nietzsche, Austrian desserts, quantum physics and atmospheric science) is out of bounds. Existing in Arnold Land feels like traveling backward and forward in time simultaneously.

On the summit stage, Harris answered questions as if she were president, suggesting that the future requires systemic change in governance, an intolerance for nostalgia and an embrace of Gen Z impatience. “They are not waiting for us” to address big problems, she told the audience.

Schwarzenegger, sitting next to her, spoke for California as if he were still its governor, taking shots at the state Legislature — “they are confused” — for weakening elements of the California climate regime he created, including alterations to the cap-and-trade market he championed.

The two longtime L.A. neighbors were chummy (he, a Republican, voted for her, a Democrat) and praised each other’s records. When CNN’s Elex Michaelson, the third Los Angeles resident on the stage, pressed Harris on whether she’ll run for president again, she claimed her future plans were limited to finding “a Sacher torte to take home with me.”

Schwarzenegger jumped in to indicate his own willingness to run, just as soon as he’s eligible.

Such jokey confidence might feel weird at a climate action meeting in an unusually sweltering Vienna, as greenhouse gas emissions increase. But it’s also refreshing. Arnold Land and the climate summit are not places for catastrophizing or existential dread.

You expect people to grow tired and sour when they get old. Schwarzenegger, who turns 79 this month, is doing the opposite.

The former governor insists that “carbon pollution” (his preferred phrase, since “no one gives a s—” about “climate,” he has said) can be solved, even reversed. His strategy is to offer a vision of an idyllic ecological future to counter the apocalypse of our climate fears. He imagines cleaner air and water than any living human has experienced, beautiful new architecture made of solar panels and advanced vehicles that produce clean energy.

How could all this be possible? Because California, local governments, businesses and everyday people are taking action, he said. Because today’s divisive politicians, including Trump, will soon be replaced by people and parties who recognize that collaboration is the only way.

“We don’t want to villainize anyone,” Schwarzenegger told an Austrian TV reporter, “The only villain is pollution.”

Before you ask what Arnold is smoking, I’ll report what was on his table in the palace: boxes of Cohibas. In Arnold Land, conversations about how to clear greenhouse gases from the air is often conducted amidst cigar smoke.

Somehow, this mix of contradiction and cockeyed optimism is infectious. During the session, Harris grew more upbeat, closing by enthusiastically reciting the summer’s Schwarzeneggerian slogan, “We are unstoppable!” Pope Leo XIV then appeared by video to suggest that with faith and works, the climate will surely be restored.

I was heading to the hotel for a nap when the text arrived:  “Arnold would like you to join him at the church.”

Weary of body but not of spirit, I headed over. Schwarzenegger and his girlfriend, Heather Milligan, were sitting next to organ player Ernst Wally. Minutes later, Harris joined them.

First, Wally played Bach’s classic “Fugue in D Minor.” The enormous cathedral organ’s sound and vibration seemed to reach inside your chest and move your entire body. It woke me up and knocked the jet lag out of me.

The organist asked for requests. Harris suggested Mozart, Austria’s own. Soon, “A Little Night Music” filled the huge cathedral. Harris listened, holding Schwarzenegger’s arm. “So much more than I expected,” Harris said as she departed.

I asked Schwarzenegger whether the field trip had religious motives.

“No, I’m just a huge fan of organ music,” he said. “Organ music gets to your heart and your soul. It changes your perspective. We all need that.”

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square.