John Kerry’s Climate Legacy at Risk as Trump Gains Momentum in US Politics

It was already night in Glasgow. And it was raining, of course. The 2021 climate summit, which was held a year late due to the pandemic in the Scottish city, had entered its final stretch. No important announcement was expected on November 10. But there was: the United States and China released a joint statement in which they committed to accelerating the fight against climate change and limiting emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is usually relegated in the fight against global warming. The promoters of the pact were two old acquaintances: John Kerry, Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate, and Xie Zhenhua, head of the Chinese delegation at the summit. These special envoys are known by the nickname of the climate czars and they are two characters without whom the climate diplomacy of recent decades in the world cannot be understood.

The most striking thing about that joint statement was the timing, because it came at the height of tension between the two superpowers over Taiwan and preceded by several public reproaches between the leaders of both countries. It was a surprising climate peace stitched together again by John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, who for years have been something like the red telephone that the two nations kept connected despite the many fronts of conflict they have open.

John Kerry speaks with Xie Zhenhua on the final day of the climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021. YVES HERMAN (Reuters)

In the next scene of this story it is less cold and it is not raining. It is also night in Dubai, where the annual 2023 summit was held this past December. The atmosphere is relaxed at the birthday party that Sultan Al Jaber, the Minister of Industry of the United Arab Emirates and president of this climate conference, has organized for Kerry, who turned 80 on December 11. Those who deal with him directly during the two-week summit agree: “He is on his way out.” And so it was: Kerry left office this week. In January, he did the same with his climatic dance partner: Xie Zhenhua. “We are really good friends,” Kerry summarized this Wednesday in a press conference with foreign journalists. “We are going to try to see if we can stay together, as emeritus, and do constructive work,” added the Democratic Party politician, who became his party’s presidential candidate in 2004 although he lost the elections to George W. Bush. Because Kerry’s intention is to remain involved in the fight against climate change, although from a second line.

In the third scene Kerry is sitting with his granddaughter Isabelle on his lap as he stamps his signature on a large book. It is April 22, 2016 and the US’s accession to the Paris Agreement is being signed at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Kerry was then the Secretary of State of the Obama Administration and a few months earlier he had been decisive, again together with his Chinese colleague, so that the Paris Agreement could be concluded in December 2015, which continues to govern international efforts against terrorism today. climate change.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, signs the Paris Agreement with his granddaughter during the signing ceremony at the United Nations headquarters in New York.ANDREW GOMBERT (EFE)

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But Donald Trump’s victory at the end of 2016 marked a radical shift in North American foreign policy in general and especially in environmental policy. To the point that the Republican, who now aspires to return to the White House, pulled his country out of the Paris Agreement. After Democrat Joe Biden’s victory at the end of 2020, Kerry returned to the front line as special climate envoy. With him by the hand, his country once again became involved in the international fight against climate change.

“As climate envoy, John Kerry forged the return of the United States as a global partner on climate issues,” summarizes Alice Hill, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think tank. “Starting with his attendance at the first UN Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, he has left an indelible mark on the fight against climate change; For more than three decades, he has fought to safeguard our planet for future generations,” adds this expert, who also advised President Obama.

Kerry’s departure has coincided with Trump’s overwhelming victory on the so-called Super Tuesday, which boosts him in the race to return to the White House despite his controversial mandate and his delegitimization of the Democratic victory that removed him from power in 2020. And many environmentalists and environmentally concerned politicians are holding their breath again. “A Trump presidency will paralyze US climate action, Trump is likely to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement again,” Hill warns. “His unwillingness to meaningfully engage with the climate or with our allies not only damages the credibility of the United States, but also endangers the health of our planet,” says this expert.

Trump’s electoral program foresees, if he is re-elected, a series of executive orders to increase the production of oil, gas and coal, with express authorization of new energy projects. This would mean reactivating the new natural gas export permits, reversing the subsidies and aid granted by the Biden Administration for the purchase of electric vehicles and, in effect, withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement again. These short-term measures would be followed by long-term plans to reduce environmental regulation and, depending on the makeup of Congress at the time, repeal provisions of the big climate bill passed by Biden, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). , in its English acronym), such as tax exemptions for clean energy.

Some of his energy and environmental policy advisers are pressuring Trump to return some lands that are now federally owned, including national forests, to the states. The Republican’s program shows how a second presidency of his would provoke another 180-degree turn toward fossil fuels, in addition to reducing environmental regulations that conservatives say destroy jobs. His advisors include several former senior officials in his Administration such as Larry Kudlow, who was director of the National Economic Council, and Rick Perry, one-time Secretary of Energy, as well as oil magnate Harold Hamm. At rallies, Trump often criticizes Biden’s energy policies and chants a well-known slogan from the 2008 Republican campaign, “Drill, baby, drill,” to harangue his bases.

And recent study from the British analyst group Carbon Brief warns and quantifies the impact that Trump’s victory would have on the global fight against climate change. The United States, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world at the moment and the first historical emitter, would fail to meet its climate commitments for this decade. By withdrawing Biden’s main environmental measures, such as those contemplated in the inflation reduction law, emissions in 2030 in the United States would only be 28% lower than those in 2005, far from the reduction objective of between 50% and the 52% that the Democrats have committed to with Biden and Kerry, Carbon Brief experts estimate.

But for now, the Democrats remain in the White House and another 75-year-old political veteran, John Podesta, has replaced Kerry as special climate envoy. His Chinese counterpart is also already known: the diplomat Liu Zhenmin, 68. The two new tsars and Kerry have already held a couple of meetings to transfer matters in the hope that collaboration between both countries will be maintained. “I continue to believe that what we have been able to do on climate has been good for the world and for our countries, and that we need continued joint efforts to address the climate crisis,” Kerry summarized this week in his farewell to him.

Cultural war against sustainability criteria

It is not necessary to wait for the elections for Republican pressure to reverse progress in environmental commitment. In February, JPMorgan, Pimco, BlackRock Inc and State Street abandoned or reduced their involvement with Climate Action 100+ in the face of harassment from Republicans. Political and regulatory pressure caused the four financial giants to defect from the largest initiative of investment groups and large companies to reduce emissions and fight global warming. The four have surrendered to the pressure that Republicans exert on sustainability criteria in several states of the country: corporate social responsibility is the epicenter of one of the many cultural battles underway. The latest threat, in the New Hampshire state legislature, sought to make these criteria a crime in some cases. The initiative was rejected, but there are States that veto the management firms that apply them and there is also pressure from Congress.

Conversely, this same week the Securities Market Commission (SEC, in its English acronym; the stock market regulator) approved, after two years of processing, a rule that requires some listed companies – the smallest ones are exempt – to report on their greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, although it is true that the directive was born weakened by pressure from companies. In this way, the United States is getting closer to the EU and California, which came forward with similar regulations. The withdrawal of Climate Action 100+ signatures and the new SEC regulation are two sides of the same coin: a culture war at the expense of the environment.

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2024-03-10 04:30:28
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