As the US barrels into a high-stakes and consequential election cycle, US climate envoy and former Secretary of State John Kerry is confident of one thing: If a Republican is elected president, they won’t be able to reverse the Biden administration’s wins on climate change and clean energy.
The economy has so drastically and fundamentally changed in the past several years, Kerry argued – spurred in large part by the Democrats’ climate and energy law passed last year – that the markets would reject a challenge to the nation’s clean energy trajectory.
“I don’t think anybody elected president – Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative – could change what is happening today,” President Joe Biden’s top climate diplomat told CNN in a candid and wide-ranging interview in his State Department office.
“The power of the marketplace is bigger than the presidency on (climate change) now,” Kerry said. “So much money has been invested in retooling and redirecting business strategies and investments.”
Kerry has been pleasantly surprised at the pace that clean energy manufacturing, electric vehicle and battery factories are flocking to the US, and noted EU officials are “a little annoyed” about generous US clean energy subsidies drawing business away from them.
“Our message to them is ‘do the same thing; let’s get going,’” Kerry told CNN. “We have made a giant leap forward.”
The 79-year-old Kerry – who has served as Biden’s climate envoy long after Washington insiders assumed he would retire – is gearing up for his third international climate summit this November in Dubai. He speaks to Biden “when I need to talk to him” and described the president as “super seized” by international climate issues.
Despite whispers…
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