John Kerry Admits: Even ‘Zero’ U.S. Emissions Won’t Solve Climate Change

 

By JOEL B. POLLAK

John Kerry, the new “Climate Envoy” in President Joe Biden’s administration, admitted to reporters Wednesday in the White House briefing room that the problem of climate change would not be solved even if U.S. emissions were “zero.”

Kerry, who negotiated the Paris Climate Agreement as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama, was speaking along with National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy at a briefing about the president’s forthcoming executive orders on climate change.

He said:

That is why [Biden] rejoined the Paris Agreement so quickly. ‘Cause he knows that it is urgent. He also knows that Paris alone is not enough, not when almost 90% of all the planet’s omissions, global omissions, come outside of U.S. borders. We could go to zero tomorrow, and the problem isn’t solved. That is why today, one week into the job, President Biden will sign this additional executive set of orders to help move us down the road, ensuring that ambitious private action is global in scope and scale as well as national, here at home. Today, in the order that he will sign, that Gina has described to you, he makes climate central to foreign policy planning, to diplomacy, and to national security preparedness.

Asked what he would say to American workers in the fossil fuel industry who are losing their jobs because of Biden’s policies, Kerry said: “Workers have been fed a false narrative…that somehow dealing with climate is coming at their expense.” He and McCarthy said that those workers would be able to find new jobs in their home communities.