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Watch: John Kerry's ‘nightmarish prospect’ remark when asked about Donald Trump
John Kerry said the US can be trusted to act on climate change no matter what happens in next year’s election.
US climate envoy John Kerry said that Washington can be trusted to act on climate change no matter what happens in next year’s election. The US’ word “is 100% percent good,” the US special presidential envoy for climate change said at the Bloomberg Green summit at COP28 in Dubai.
What if former US president Donald Trump returns to the White House, John Kerry was asked. To this, he shuddered in mock surprise and alarm.
“That nightmarish prospect—” he said, before catching himself.
“I’m not allowed to comment on politics, actually,” he said, adding, “My body language was enough of it.”
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During his term in office, Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, dialled back green regulations and reduced international funding commitments to help countries that are bearing the brunt of warming- steps that were criticised domestically and by other world leaders.
“Could he, or someone else who doesn’t want to listen to the science, or doesn’t read about it or care about the facts, have an impact? Yes,” John Kerry said.
But they are “not going to stop what is happening” — a global movement toward “a low-carbon or no-carbon economy," he asserted.
John Kerry also pointed to private sector’s buy-in to the clean energy transition as automakers won’t reverse course after spending billions of dollars retooling manufacturing lines to produce electric vehicles.
While Donald Trump was president, 75% of the electricity added in the US came exclusively from renewables, John Kerry said, adding, “Obviously he didn’t know that or he would have stopped that or tried to. But that’s the reality. Even though Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, the American people did not.”
