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John Kerry, one of the main architects of the Paris climate agreement, has a new chance to lead the fight against climate change after President-elect Joe Biden appointed longtime senator and former secretary of State as climate envoy for national security.
Biden’s team gave few immediate details Monday on how he envisions Kerry shaping the new job, which many social media and all sides of the climate action spectrum were quick to dub “the Czar.” of the climate ”. But the transition team has made it clear that this will be a leading role, with Kerry becoming the first member of the National Security Council to focus exclusively on climate change.
It was one of Biden’s first steps in delivering on campaign pledges to deal with climate damage from fossil fuel emissions in a broader and more forceful way than any previous U.S. administration. And it’s a sign that the new administration is heeding warnings that natural disasters from global warming will weaken U.S. defense and spark conflicts around the world.
“America will soon have a government that will treat the climate crisis as the urgent threat to national security,” Kerry tweeted. “I am proud to join with the President-elect, our allies and the young leaders of the climate movement to tackle this crisis as the President’s envoy for climate.”
At 76, Kerry has the stature to help him strike deals with foreign governments on global climate efforts. But he’s been up to half a century or more past the activists who have pushed climate change to the forefront of national policy for the past four years.
Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the climate group Sunrise Movement, which has younger members, called the appointment a “very good move”, saying Kerry has combined a long experience on climate issues with a commitment “to engage. and listen to young voices. “But Prakash called on Biden to go further and create a new national federal office to push agencies on climate efforts.
The incoming administration’s move comes after four years in which President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, encouraged more drilling for climate-damaging oil and gas. coal mining, and routinely dismantled the Obama administration’s efforts to curb fossils. fuel emissions.
Biden has pledged to bring the United States back into the Paris climate agreement. After the 2018 midterm elections in which young progressives like New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez succeeded in pushing climate change to the top of the U.S. political agenda, Biden in her race to the presidential election promised a $ 2 trillion plan to overhaul the country’s transportation and power sectors. and buildings to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
Kerry was a senator from Massachusetts, a failed Democratic presidential candidate against George W. Bush in 2004 and Obama’s second secretary of state from 2013 to 2017.
In the Senate, Kerry was in 2010 one of the leading authors of one of the biggest legislative pushes to date by Congress to limit fossil fuel emissions. It failed.
Kerry’s former Democratic colleagues in Congress have welcomed his appointment.
Kerry brings “diplomatic and political expertise” and “knows better than anyone how to ensure that this crisis receives the international attention it desperately needs,” said Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee. environment and public works.
Brett Hartl, director of government affairs for the environmental advocacy group at the Center for Biological Diversity, praised the new Biden administration’s decision on Kerry.
But “it’s important somewhere in Biden’s administration,” particularly in the climate, not to see “just the same people and actors that we’ve seen before on these issues,” Hartl said.
Other conservationists – some of whom want the United States to turn off all fossil fuels within a few years – were more acerbic. Wenonah Hauter of Food and Water Action said Kerry’s record was far too lukewarm on limiting fossil fuels. “Kerry’s proposals are tired ideas from years past that will do little or nothing to resolve our climate crisis,” Hauter said in a statement.
The US military has warned in a series of reports that climate change is a security threat on many fronts. This includes “through direct impacts on the US military infrastructure and by affecting factors, including the availability of food and water, which can exacerbate conflicts outside US borders,” said the most. recent and gloomy federal climate report.
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