John Kerry Is Looking for Money (to Help Save the Climate)
I had the chance to have a series of phone conversations with the former Secretary of State John Kerry last week, in between trips he’s making (he was recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Arab Emirates; Mexico and Vietnam are the next stops) as the United States’ special climate envoy, in preparation for next month’s United Nations cop27 summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Kerry’s mission is to encourage nations to move more quickly away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy. His goal, which he returns to every few sentences in conversation, is to keep nations to the target of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which was set in the Paris climate accords, in 2016. The richest nations, particularly this one, obviously bear the largest responsibility, but meeting that target will be notably difficult in the developing world, which has done the least to cause the crisis but where growth in energy use is highest and access to capital for transitioning to clean energy is hard to come by. The trick is to persuade both governments and financiers to take a chance on new technologies, and, as Kerry makes clear, the biggest challenge in that regard is figuring out how to help poorer nations get the necessary capital.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate diplomacy: COP 27
The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27) produced a groundbreaking agreement to create a “loss and damage” fund to help developing nations cope with the impact of climate change.
But the conference, held from Nov. 6 to Nov. 20, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, fell short of a hoped-for agreement to speed reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”