John Kerry

serving a Special Envoy for Climate Change. I've known John Carey for many years, had a chance recently sit down with him and talk to him about climate change and many other issues facing the United States. I went back and looked at very few secretaries of State in the last hundred years or maybe ever, have really gone back into government. So why did you want to come back

in the government for any issue? When you're you've got eight grandchildren, you've got two daughters, You've got wonderful family. Why did you want to come back in and go through this terrible process. We haven't Washington getting things through consensus and getting people to agree with what you want to do. Because I want those grandchildren to have a future. It's very simple. Uh, We're not in a good track right now the world. It's not serious enough about reducing

our emissions fast enough, David. And the result is that the planet is going to continue to evolve in reaction to what we human beings are doing to it, mostly through fossil fuels. Most of the emissions that are going up nowadays into the atmosphere and are creating this increased level of energy that comes from the ocean, goes into the storms, the floods, the rain. All of it is explainable, and it's all linked to the changes we are creating

on the planet. So it's very simple. I wanted to come in because I think we have a real chance now to make something happen, and I think Glasgow was a major step forward in the effort to do that. So some people urge you to run for president this most recent election, and you know, I thought, I read the newspapers and all. If it's true that you thought about it, But when Joe decided to run, you decided you were not going to run against Well, I've decided

before Joe Biden decided not to run. I thought Joe Biden had a better narrative than I did, to be honest with you, and he's a great friend through many many years. We've known each other way back into the early nineteen seventies, and I really thought he could win and was the best guy to go do the job. And I'm glad I made campaign for him. He gets elected and he says, guess what can you come back and serve again? Did you say I'm retired, I'm already doing other things, I don't want to do it, or

do you say I really want to do this? No, I was. I was excited by the prospect. I didn't know what it would be specifically, and I think we have to sort of work out the parameters to understand

exactly what the dynamics would be. But the idea of having a president who wanted to get back into Paris, who wanted to make this one of his top security issues one of his top issues overall, and the idea of having a president who was going to continue to push he has been to help us get something like Glasgow was exciting and it is exciting, and I felt super motivated about that. Jim Baker once said the best job in Washington is actually secretary of State. So you've

seen the presidents said that. People, All right, so you were secretary of State for four years. It's a great job. Everybody loves it. Who has that job? But now you work in the building where you were Secretary of State, but you're technically not the Secretary of State anymore. Practically, man not a right, So it's a complicated The man who was your deputy is now the Secretary of State. That's spectacular, works out. Tony is a great friend. I've

known him for years. We worked on the Foreign Relacens Committee together, worked when he was in the White House. Uh, he's doing a great job. I think the administration is right on track now with respect to what's happening in Ukraine. I think they've been strong and skillful, and I'm very happy doing one issue, believe me. Okay, so let's talk

about Glasgow. How many times when you have international conferences, most of the things are working out in advance, and it's kind of you know, symmetry has worked out in advance, and you have press conferences, but the things that already agreed to. But my impression is in Paris and Glasgow, it wasn't all worked out in a camp, all worked

out that and you know, nations have different interests. You have a hundred ninety five nations coming to the table and everybody's voice needs to be accounted for and listen to and factored into what you're doing, and some of the dynamics just don't come together until the clock strikes midnight and you know you've got to cut you know, Fisher cut bait, and they're always last minute things that rise in that context. So I understand from people were

in Glasgow. I wasn't there that you were running around in the middle of the night working with other delegations trying to cut deals, and in the end people actually said it was a pretty good agreement that came out of Glasgow. Is that your your view as well? Yes, I think it was a very forward leaning, strong agreement, David. It has the single greatest raising of ambition that this

process has ever achieved. It has unanimity about what has to happen in terms of raising the efforts around the world. We signed on together with the plans individual nations have, and when you tie those to the initiatives that many different countries came together to embark on themselves all together. Fati Bireaul of the International Energy Agency has run the models and all of those promises, it actually could get us to hold one point eight degrees by. Now, that's encouraging.

It means you can do things that make a difference, at least in the models. The trick now not a trick. The challenge now is that over the course of the next eight years, we have to reduce emissions by at least globally in order to be able to achieve net zero by and in order to be able to hold the temperature to one point five degree are warming. So the consensus seems to be that you can't do these

things overnight. So you have a period of time, you allow people to change their habits, and so the consensus is that by twenty fifty is the time we want to measure success. Is that right? Yes, But this is not a politically arrived at, our ideologically arrived at goal.

This is coming from thousands of scientists, and they're the ones who tell us in the last report of that if we want to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis, we have to reduce our emissions and get to net zero by The only way to get to net zero is to begin now to reduce, because there's no curve steep enough to reduce later. You've got to

start now. That's why the next eight years, this decade, those scientists have said to us, to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis, you must reduce the emissions by over the net ten years. That's so we've set our our goal. President Biden has set a goal that we will reduce our missions by fifty over these next eight years. In Canada's about forty five to fifty, Japan fifty, Europe production, UK percent production, South Africa fifty. So people

have stepped up. We now have six of global g d P committed to hold on to the one point five degrees. But that means obviously you have thirty that isn't so. Our Our effort now, David is called implementation plus. We want to implement the promises that were made in Glasgow and we want to add to them to bring that other of the people to the table. If everybody does what we said we would do. Currently, currently that's without eight or nine countries that make an enormous difference

to this. But currently they say we could get to one point eight degrees by that's pretty amazing. And if we can do that without China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, a group of countries. We need them to come aboard. If we get everybody on board, we could actually keep one point five degrees alive or minimize the damage that has done. So the countries you mentioned, they haven't signed on to this yet completely. They've signed

on to various efforts. I mean, China does have a plan in place, it's just that it doesn't in our judgment. We need to go further faster, and that judgment is reinforced by the judgment of the International Energy Agency that says last year cole went up over where we were in round the world, around the world, but the US went up to didn't It went up here too, Yes,

there was a tick up. In addition, uh, there's about three hundred giga lots of new coal construction coming online at a time where the International Energy Agency says you've got to reduce coal plants by eight hundred and seventy watts. So the imbalance of that is dangerous for everybody. It's at the heart of what we have to really try

to tackle them. One of the challenges has been the developing nations, and some people would say China, even though it's the gigantic economy is a developing nation and India gigantic economy of developing nation. They say, well, you guys in the West, you've been polluting for a long time. Why don't we get a chance to pollute for a while and get our economy in better shape, and then we'll negotiate some reduction images. It won't be much world

left to negotiate. It's very simple, all right. That's the argument that they know. It's not it's a it's a reality. No country can solve this problem by itself, no country. If we went to zero missions tomorrow, we still need China, Russia, Indian all these other countries to be on board. Now the argument. I've heard this argument face to face with different ministers and people who say, wait a minute, you guys were doing this a long time ago. You've had

more years to do it. Yes, But here's the butt capitalized. It wasn't until in nineteen nineties beginning that this issue suddenly arose and people were aware of what we were doing.

And from that point in time we have made bona fide efforts continually to try to be fair and bring people to the table and spend money and change the dynamic until Glasgow, with the Chinese were saying recently, well, we have a lot of issues with the United States, and let's put them all together and we'll resolve all issues, including climate change. I understand you kind of did some negotiating in Glasgow, and you've got the Chinese degree that

will separate out the climate change issue. Is that fair? Yes, well, we we had agreed to separate it out previously, and President Biden and President She had talked about it, uh, and that has been our point of view from the very beginning. Here. This is not an issue. This is not a bilateral issue. This isn't an issue between China and the United States, except to the degree that if one or the other is is UH continuing the problem, we all have a right to push back. This is

a global issue. Every country can do things that make a difference here. I mean, China is about thirty of all the emissions on the planet, the US is about ten percent now, and then you have India behind us, the EU, UH, Russia, Indonesia, and and sequentially down to about two and one point something percent of all the emissions, so twenty countries. David, Basically the g twenty but twenty countries, not exclusively G twenty account for eighty percent of all

the emissions on the planet. So if you can get those twenty countries to come together and work fast enough, we can really have a profound impact on the choices that other governments are making. I e. What happens in Africa as they developed. We want them to develop. We

want Latin America to development. We want South Asia develop more, but we want them to develop clean smart That doesn't mean building coal, It means using renewables, moving into new energy, and we have to develop further battery storage, clean hydrogen. We have to UH carbon capture, which could make an enormous difference and utilization of that carbon for one product or another. So there's a lot of research being done, but not even enough research being done at this point

in time now. In the Build Back Better legislation, a large part of it was incentives for people to convert to UM more energy UM i'd say efficient kinds of UH way of getting things done, and and renewables and softwath tax and centives, a whole variety of things. I think maybe five billion dollars of total value UM that legislation installed now So what do people say to you at Glasgow? They say, wait a second, you have all those decent centives, but you're not getting them through the Congress,

so why should we listen to you. Well, there are people who asked that question, No question about it, I've heard it. The fact is that the Infrastructure Bill, which President Biden proposed and has passed and signed into law, has in it major initiatives to deal with planet, with the with the global crisis, and and so for instance, building charging stations around the nation, helping with incentives for the conversion to electric vehicles, building out a grid in America,

a smart grid with transmission, and so forth. There's about I think it's about sixty seventy billion dollars in there for that. So there are major steps that are already passed. And I know the President is going to continue to try to fight for the best parts of what he thinks he could get through on the what was bill back better. I don't know if it will be that or something else, but we need that. We need that

for the planet. It's not just what we do in America will matter enormously to what happens in many other parts of the world. So um, Let's say I'm a country that is in Glasgow and I'm sitting down with you privately, and I say, I know you. You have the best of intentions, and presidents the best of intentions. But Donald Trump's popularity seems to be still high. He could get elected again. So why should I listen to you, because we could go through this whole thing about the

United States pulling out of these agreements again. It do you have that question? I don't believe I've had that question, sure, but I believe and I think you'll agree with me. There is no way any president down the road. And I believe President Biden. You know, he's got three more years and then I think he could be elected and re elected will be because of what he has achieved. And once we get beyond COVID, once we see this transition between you know, taking hold. Our economy is doing

pretty well and and the unemployment is very low. So a lot of the uncertainty right now revolves around COVID UH and the other things. But let me just say this, No president in the future would walk into the White House and undo what is going on around the world. This is bigger than the United States. What is this response. People all around the world are retooling. Here in America.

Do you think Ford Motor Company and General Motors, which have completely retooled in are retooling their factories to build electric You think there's suddenly they'll say, no, electrics not the future. Electric is the future for automobiles all around the world. That's already happening, the pace at which electric is in demand and being built. Why is Tesla the highest value company in the world and all that produces

is electric cars and electric vehicles. So I think that no, with the trillions of dollars that are going into clean hydrogen, into batteries and battery storage, carbon capture, while companies all around the world. You know this, David. You you sit on boards, You're been a CEO. There are board rooms all around the planet in which the discussion is about e s G. Environment, social and governance. People are concerned

about being responsible. The finance sector is going to demand disclosure of risk, so people are going to be making risk judgments about the kinds of investments that are being made. And and I think I don't see any politician anywhere in the world undoing what is happening in the private sector today, and that's going to continue. It's going to grow far above what it is today. Let's suppose I say to you, I agree with what you're saying, but

actually I'm not that able to impact climate change. I'm just a capitalist. I want to an investor. Am I going to be able to make money by investing in this climate change economy? Or am I going to lose money? You're gonna be able to make money. But it's going to happen, and and there are a lot of people already investing in it and making money. I know people

in certain parts of the world. They will remain nameless, but they're invested to the tune of billions of dollars in alternative renewable energy, and they're deploying it around the world. It is cheaper to do that than it is to build a coal plant, then to buy the coal. It's

cheaper than it is for fossil fuel today. And if if, if people did real accounting, which they don't do, the real cost of fossil fuel ought to contain the damage to the atmosphere, the damage to the planet, the warming of the ocean, the black lung disease, the health effects I mean, the real cost of this is way beyond what's factored in at the pump or anywhere else. And you know that. So because there are subsidies. We have about two and a half trillion dollars of subsidies built

into the system. Last year there's about four billion dollars of subsidies to what to fossil fuel, which is causing the problem. That doesn't make sense, David, And so I think that you're going to see a sea change. Look at what happened in next on Mobile. Three seats on the board of directors have gone to people who have been active caring about climate and has changed what that company is thinking about and doing with respect to it.

So you obviously are passionate about the subject. I assume fair to say, well, I'm passionate about it because I think because the the negatives that will come with ignoring this further are so identifiable. It's almost like the vaccination issue. I don't want to get into it too deeply, but the people dying are unvaccinated and the people going to hospital and vaccinated. Do you get a message from that, Well,

it's about the same thing here. We're spending hundreds of billions of dollars cleaning up the mess after a storm that we might have been better off preventing in the first place. And if all the literature is clear, all the economic analysis is clear, it will cost us far more not to take action than it costs to take action. So common sense says, let's let's get to work. You came to Washington as a senator. How is Washington different

than is it it's night and day? Because then there was bipartisanship to some extent, well, there was to more than some extent. I mean, I could remember we get together in the in the city on a given night, and and we'd have Republicans and Democrats at the table and eat dinner and laugh and tell jokes and do some business too. And the next day you could come into the Senate and build on what had happened. That

doesn't happen. I think that's changed a lot of reasons, David, not, the least of which is the amount of money it takes to run for office in America. Now it's it's a huge amounts of money, and there's a perennial there's a constant process of having to get on an airplane and go raise money. So as you look at your incredible career in public service, what would you say you're most proud of having achieved so far? I've never said

I can't even begin to answer that. I mean, I'm proud that, you know, for twenty eight years I had the privilege of representing messages It's and we did some very exciting things with health care and children and on the Foreign Relations Committee ending a War with Vietnam with John McCain. He and I worked hard on PO W M I A to try to put the Vietnam War to bed really and to do it the right way by answering the questions families had about the missing in

action and prisoners. Uh. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of keeping faith with with combatants in that effort. I mean, there many things. I think the Iran Nuclear Agreement was one of the strongest nuclear agreements in history, and tragically President pulled out of that and now you see where we are. An is back, the nuclear weapon is threatening again, and we're in a far more dangerous world as a result of what he did. So I'm

proud of what we did on that agreement. And you know, I'm proud of the Paris Agreement, in the Glasgow Agreement, those I think are perhaps, if we look at where we're heading and what we need to do, among the

most important things any of us could have done. So as you look back on your career, you no regrets you didn't go into private equity, investment, banking, something important like that, Well, life would be easier, indifferent probably, but no, I've loved every minute of what I've done, and I you know, who knows, maybe there's still time to do some of that. So you have eight grandchildren when you're blended family, what do they call you a secretary or

or a special envoy or what do they call you? Uh, depends what mood, but mostly grandpa, Mostly I am I'm grandpa unless on words, I can't even begin to describe and tell them about climate change very much. They're not that focused on it, or no, they're not that focused. Happily, Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen