Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s Remarks at the Center for Foreign Relations

Mike, Ambassador Froman, thank you for your generous words and for taking on the important task of leading the Council. I’m grateful that you’ve placed the climate crisis at the center of CFR’s priorities, just as Richard Haass did before you.

I appreciate the opportunity to share some reflections on the journey of a little more than three years as the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. 

In November 2020, when President-elect Biden called me about this job, we talked about the world he was inheriting. America’s reputation on the global stage was in tatters. Tensions with China were at a high point. The world and the global economy were still reeling from COVID – with many countries still facing lockdowns.

On January 20, 2021, within hours of being sworn in, President Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement. A few hours later, I was sworn in as envoy. I gathered with a small band of first day staff, and we began piecing together an office and a strategy. 

The most critical decision of that day was the commitment to do everything in our power to limit the Earth’s temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C, a threshold science told us was critical for the health and lives of people everywhere. “Keep 1.5 alive” became our mantra, our organizational principle. Why? Because the science dictated it. The math and physics are undeniable, and now our government was done with denial. 

President Biden was determined to earn back America’s credibility and work with all countries, particularly the major economies – the world’s largest emitters, in order to raise ambition and address a global crisis. 

Within months, thanks to the great work of Gina McCarthy, Ali Zaidi, my team, and others, the new U.S. nationally determined contribution was announced – a 50-52% reduction of emissions in 2030, achieving net zero emissions by 2050. 

On Earth Day, we held an historic leaders summit in the East Room of the White House. And President Biden reconvened that Major Economies Forum twice more afterwards to continue to raise the climate ambition of the world’s largest economies. 

As a centerpiece of our climate diplomacy, the President pledged to scale up our international climate finance to over $11 billion annually by 2024. And we have made enormous progress towards that goal, raising our support for developing countries from $1.5 billion in 2021 to $9.5 billion in 2023 — the largest such increase, ever. And this year, we intend to finish the job.

To address the urgent needs of those on the climate front lines, President Biden announced PREPARE, an Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience, which is helping more than half a billion people worldwide cope with the rising impacts of the climate crisis. 

We forged innovative partnerships with other nations and with the private sector to drive innovation and action.

We put super pollutants like methane, which are 80 times more potent than CO2 in the short term, at the top of the agenda. Through the Global Methane Pledge, which we initiated together with the EU, 155 countries are now on board to slash methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. And at COP28, we announced $1 billion in new grant funding to help meet that goal.

We tapped into the power of private capital through the Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C) and the First Movers Coalition (FMC), helping to put the world’s biggest companies at the leading edge of climate solutions. Through the FMC, nearly 100 of the world’s largest companies have committed to purchase clean steel and other low-carbon products, sending a demand signal of over $16 billion to pull cutting-edge technologies into the marketplace. 

To help finance the energy transition in emerging and developing economies, we partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund to launch the Energy Transition Accelerator – an innovative carbon crediting program with unprecedented environmental integrity.

The Green Shipping Challenge we established with Norway is mobilizing $1.6 billion in public and private funding to decarbonize a sector that is critical to global commerce and our way of life. Thanks to this initiative, and our engagement with the IMO, the entire maritime fleet, which is one of the largest carbon emitters in the world, will be transitioning to carbon-free power over the next 20 years. This is a major step forward. 

All of these initiatives and more contributed significantly to the momentum we and other nations were able to achieve at the last three COPs. From Glasgow, to Sharm El-Sheikh, to Dubai, we worked together with each COP Presidency to help set the stage for the UAE Consensus. 

I’m convinced Dubai will be judged one of the most significant COPs in history. 

For the first time ever, we adopted a substantive decision on the very first day of the COP – an historic and unprecedented agreement establishing a new fund to help vulnerable countries deal with the real and current impacts of the climate crisis. For years, losses and damages have been a contentious issue, and with significant diplomatic engagement throughout the year, we were able to change that dynamic. 

Nations joined together to set ambitious goals to triple renewable deployment, double energy efficiency, and halt and reverse deforestation in this critical decade. And a coalition co-led by the United States set a goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity by 2050. 

Words matter in international agreements. Most importantly, in this one, is paragraph 28. We achieved something we’d tried to do for a long time, when almost 200 countries finally agreed on the imperative of “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 in keeping with the science.”

Each phrase in that paragraph carries impact. “Just and orderly manner” is critical for developing countries. “Accelerating action in this decade” underscores the importance of 2030 goals, because without 2030 goals there is no net zero by 2050. “Keeping with the science” means 1.5, folks. And “net zero emissions” means you have to have a plan. That’s the power of what came out of Dubai. The most focused, demanding initiative in the history of the COPs. 

Multilateral success is often built on the foundation of bilateral engagement.  Foreign Ministers told me, we could not have reached the UAE Consensus without China and the United States finding common ground in a series of meetings throughout this administration, but particularly in Sunnylands, California, last fall. 

After years of Beijing not accounting for any of its non-CO2 greenhouse gases – which on their own make it the world’s third largest emitter, on par with India’s entire economy – China committed to submit a 2035 nationally determined contribution that is economy-wide and includes all greenhouse gases. That is a big step forward.

And, for the first time, China acknowledged that it anticipates achieving net reductions in power sector emissions by the end of the decade—rather than continuing to plateau far longer than the science would allow.

These key understandings from the Sunnylands Statement helped establish the basis for the successful outcome of the Global Stocktake in Dubai – the first of the periodic stocktakes mandated in the Paris Agreement.  

Now the immediate task is implementation, action, and more implementation. This new statement of global intent, endorsed by almost 200 nations, this UAE Consensus — must never be reduced to mere words on a piece of paper.  Now our challenge is to translate the UAE Consensus into investment and action. 

The upside is enormous. The transition to a clean energy economy represents the greatest economic opportunity since the industrial revolution. Already, we are seeing incredible progress across key sectors of the economy. Our job is to accelerate this progress – to erase the fear of this transformation and replace it with the possibilities.  

Technology and innovation are in fact our greatest assets. Just think about last year’s landmark announcement on fusion out of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the five-fold increase we’ve seen in electrolyzer capacity in the United States. 

Think of the demonstration projects underway for batteries with new chemistries, like iron-air batteries with the potential to provide longer-term energy storage for electric grids.

To realize the potential of these technological solutions, we must, of course, overcome some fundamental challenges. 

Despite being inundated by record everything – record rainfall, record warmth in the Arctic and Antarctic, record fires, record floods, record melting, record drought, record emissions – despite all that, too many refuse to accept the facts or choose to outright distort them. 

We know with certainty that many of the jobs and the investments of the future are found in solving the climate crisis – not in prolonging it. Today, the IEA reported that in 2023, total CO2 emissions from energy combustion in the United States declined by 4.1%, while the economy grew by 2.5%. Those who claim we are putting our economic security at risk by taking action to cut pollution could not be further from the truth, or the science. 

In the end, we face not just a confrontation with the climate crisis – but with human nature itself. In too many places, including here in the United States, we are locked in a polarized confrontation.  The worst instincts of those who choose to ignore the facts are stacked up against the best instincts of people who know we must take action now. The clock is ticking.  

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not – and should not be – an ideological fight. Yet even as every economic analysis reminds us that delay is far more expensive than taking action now, we are nevertheless in the middle of a battle against distortion, disinformation, and greed. Only one outcome is tolerable for future generations.

When we began our work in 2021, the world was on track for 3 or more degrees of warming. Thanks to the progress we’ve made, we’re now on track to limit warming to 2.3 degrees, or 1.7 degrees – if all the pledges made to date are implemented.  That’s a big if, and it’s up to all of us to erase that question mark, even as we double down on doing more to keep 1.5 alive, as we committed to on that first day. 

Just as people from all walks of life came together to win the Second World War – engineers and scientists locking arms with determined diplomats and courageous generals – we need to invest and innovate at scale. 

It’s a simple choice, really. If those who seek to delay, distort, and deny in pursuit of the path of least resistance prevail, they will take us all down the path of maximum destruction. But if we follow the facts and embrace technology, if we do it correctly, waiting for us on the other side is a cleaner, safer, healthier, and more prosperous future for everyone. 

My experience in this job and in public service tells me, we can get there – and we have to. 

With the UAE Consensus, we now have a global roadmap. We just need to follow it. But we must be louder, clearer, and relentless. Truth must triumph over disinformation. 

This is not a transition to be feared. It is a transformation to be seized. 

Though I am leaving the job of Special Envoy, I am not retiring and I am not leaving the climate fight. I intend to be part of the effort to accelerate the transition and meet the goals set out in Dubai. 

I’ve had the privilege to serve in public office for many years. I’ve seen firsthand the power of the United States to galvanize nations to action.  As I’ve traveled the world, I’ve also heard the pleas of those who’ve contributed the least to this climate crisis, who stand to lose the most, and who speak with the greatest moral urgency.

And I’ve been awestruck by the determination of scientists, entrepreneurs, inventors, our young people – people of all nationalities in all walks of life – all of whom want to create a better world for those who will follow.  

They don’t give up, they don’t give in – and that is what gives me hope, the ultimate renewable resource.  

Some can deny and deride, but I always remember what Nelson Mandela said: “they always say it is impossible, until it is done.”

We don’t need to do the impossible here, we just need to do what our people and our planet demand – and what we know we have the ability to do. So, let’s not stop until it is done. 

Thank you.