Getting back on track

US President-elect Joe Biden has demonstrated that climate change is at the top of his agenda by naming former Secretary of State John Kerry to the post of special climate envoy and including him in the National Security Council. Kerry is a “heavyweight” who is well versed in the subject. He helped draft the Paris climate accord signed on April 22, 2016, by 174 countries on the first day it was open for signature, including by the United Arab Emirates. Subsequently, the total of signatories became 195, with the European Union as a bloc in addition to individual member states. 

The US has been the only state to withdraw. During his 2016 campaign for the presidency Donald Trump pledged to pull out of the accord. As a climate change denier, Trump argues that cutting greenhouse gases and other polluting emissions in accordance with the time-table put forward in the deal would harm the US economy. He says coal miners would lose their jobs and the US would be forced to phase out coal-fired power plants, regulate vehicle exhausts and heating plant emissions, and cease fracking operations.

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On Aug.4, 2017, the Trump administration notified the UN that the US would withdraw. However, it had to wait three years, until Nov.4, 2019, to deposit formal notification. Ironically, the US withdrew on Nov.4, 2020, one day after Trump was defeated in his bid for re-election. Biden promised to re-join the Accord on his first day in office — which will be Jan.20, 2021. Biden planned for that moment by recruiting Kerry for his transi-team to help prepare the climate agenda for the new administration.

This is essential if the Paris Accord is to move ahead with efforts to reduce global warming in line with recommendations of climate scientists — who have been either ignored or dismissed by the Trump administration and its unscientific hangers on. 

Climate change is the main long-term threat to the world Biden has to address. The US is the second largest global polluter. China is the first and India the third. These three countries combined contribute 49 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. China has made a serious effort to curb emissions but, illogically, is in the process of building new coal-fired power plants, while India is on track to reach its goals. As the US squandered four years during the Trump administration; Biden needs to make up for lost time.

Kerry is the right man to lead this effort. He has promised to “fight climate change full time.” Following the announcement of his potential appointment, he tweeted that the US “will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is.”

However, before the Biden administration can begin to implement its thoroughgoing plan to dramatically cut emissions, it will have to raise $2 trillion (Dhs7.3b) for creating new jobs in renewable energy and climate-rescue endeavours. 

Biden’s plan will face major obstacles if Republicans regain control of the Senate which is the ultimate arbiter of appropriations. The fate of the Senate will be decided in a run-off election for two seats in the state of Georgia on Jan.5. At present Democrats have 48 seats, Republicans 50. If the Democrats win both seats in Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris will break tie votes. If the Republicans win one or both, Biden and Kerry might, just might be able to convince two or three to break ranks with their party and vote to save the planet.

Kerry is a good choice not only because he is well versed in climate change but also because he belongs to the moderate rather than the progressive wing of the Democratic party. It is significant that Kerry, who was defeated for the presidency by George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, has followed in the footsteps of US climate change pioneer Al Gore, who lost to Bush in a disputed election in 2000.

Following his defeat Gore, who was Bill Clinton’s vice president, made the iconic climate change film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” as the mainstay of his climate activism. After leaving office in 2017, Kerry has also turned to film to tell the story of climate change/global warming. He appeared in “Before the Flood,” a documentary by film star Leonardo DiCaprio and produced by Martin Scorsese. Kerry and DiCaprio are currently working on another film about oceans. Kerry also plans to work on climate change films in the fictional mode, films that could entertain while convincing sceptics that climate change threatens their very existence while bolstering arguments of believers. 

Nevertheless, deniers and sceptics and their powerful multinational supporters can be expected to use every dirty trick in the book to counter and side-track a realistic US climate change policy. When running for the presidency in 2004 Kerry, a Vietnam war hero, was subjected to a nasty smear campaign by the Republicans. Their candidate, Bush, skipped the war by serving in the Texas air national guard far from bombs and bullets. 

The Republicans lied and sneered to play down Kerry’s record although it had been certified by the US Navy, in the first major modern use of “fake news.” Since then lies and “fake news” have ballooned. Kerry told The Guardian via Zoom, “And that’s where we are today: massive lies. We’ve had tens of thousands of lies told by [Trump]. We’re just completely divorced from the reality of what is happening to people’s lives.”  Nevertheless, is now demonstrating its power. 

Biden and Kerry are likely to win support in their climate change efforts from global warming itself. In recent years the US has been increasingly subjected to expanded hurricane seasons, drought, floods, abrupt weather swings, freezing winds from the north, hot winds from the south, and devastating fire seasons in the west. Since millions of US citizens are affected by them, these unusual phenomena cannot be ignored or dismissed forever by climate change deniers.  Furthermore, coal miners are a disappearing breed. Trump failed to protect their jobs and communities. Coming generations will not look to digging coal in dangerous and dark tunnels deep underground as a lifetime occupation if the US is able to enact Biden’s plan to train men and women for work which will save the planet rather than destroy it.