John Kerry doesn’t see signs of stronger climate pledges

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple

The world looks different months after leaders vowed in November at a U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, to redouble their efforts to slow Earth’s warming. The coronavirus pandemic has dragged on, upending individual livelihoods and entire economies. Russia has waged war on Ukraine, a humanitarian tragedy that also laid bare the world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels.

In an interview on the eve of Earth Day, the Biden administration’s special presidential envoy for climate, John F. Kerry, spoke about how the world has so far failed to live up to its climate goals, why he remains optimistic the White House can still take meaningful action to cut greenhouse emissions and why protecting the oceans remains a critical part of safeguarding the planet.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity:

The Washington Post: You recently returned from the Our Ocean Conference, which this year was held in Palau, a small island nation. This is an annual gathering you helped start in 2014 while at the State Department. I noticed that once again there was a list of ocean-related commitments made. What were some of the most significant ones? And in what ways could they have near-term impact on places like Palau, which, as you know, is really on the front lines of climate change?

John F. Kerry: Well, there were significant commitments made by the United States and others to help with the adaptation and building of resilience. There are a lot of things that can make a difference to the island states, not the least of which is just early-warning systems and some very basic adaptation efforts like sea walls and barriers, stronger buildings and so forth.

In addition, there was a lot of major commitments made for marine protected areas — and for greater enforcement of marine protected areas. There were very significant initiatives on plastic. I think it’s fair to say that the 70-plus nations that came together … all left really committed to achieving a plastics treaty in the course of this year.

Over the years, since 2014, when we did the first one, there have been over $100 billion worth of commitments made, over 1,800 total commitments. And you could trace them and you’ll see these are commitments which the vast majority of people are following up on and implementing.

WP: Speaking of promises, we’re several months past when there were a lot of commitments also at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow aimed at keeping global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels. And I wanted to go back to a couple of those. At the top of that list was this issue of, frankly, nations like Palau and other developing nations and small island nations that really pushed wealthy nations like the United States and others to make good on the promises for more financing to deal with climate change, and to build greener economies. Are you confident that’s going to happen? And given our own democratic system where Congress hasn’t necessarily funded this in the way you would like, what do you say to those nations and whether they should feel confident in our promises?

Climate pledges are improving — but still leave world on a disastrous path

Kerry: I mean, the president’s promise was by 2024, he will have $11.4 billion [annually for international climate finance]. We’re about a billion shy of what our target was for this year. And as of this year, at the end of [2022, developed nations are] probably at $96 billion [of the $100 billion promised annually]. I still think we have time to try to get to $100 billion.

The problem we have is that Donald Trump didn’t put any money in it. Cut the whole program. So the baseline that we began with, it’s a low baseline. And getting very significant increases in the budget [is hard] — ask anybody in any department in the country, with the exception of the Defense Department.