There was dismay in climate circles last week when John Kerry stepped down from his role as US climate envoy to focus on Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
I don’t share it. Yes, Kerry is the most effective member of the US gerontocracy and has been crucial in forging what international consensus there is on climate change.
Illustration: Andrew Dyson.Credit:
Yet if Kerry is going to spend what must surely be the last months of his extraordinary public life fighting for climate change action, there is no better place for him than Biden’s campaign.
No single figure on earth could be a greater threat to its climate than a re-elected Donald Trump.
During his first term Trump abandoned the Paris Agreement. With a gut instinct towards deregulation turbocharged by fossil fuel donors he scrapped over 100 environment regulations, including crucial standards on methane emissions from oil and gas production and landfills, and federal fuel economy standards. Were all of his first-term policies to have been fully realised they would have collectively created the same combined emissions as Germany, Britain and Canada over a year – 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – according to one analysis.
No single figure on earth could be a greater threat to its climate........