John Kerry’s America First climate legacy

MAGA may really hate John Kerry, but under his leadership U.S. climate diplomacy has stuck to its America First heritage.

President Joe Biden’s special climate envoy will step down in the coming months, a significant moment in a career that has shaped international climate politics since international climate politics existed.   

The news was met with praise for his salvage of the U.S.-China climate relationship. He oversaw Biden’s reentry to the Paris Agreement following Donald Trump’s withdrawal and worked unflaggingly across decades to fight for a cause that he has called “a threat to all humankind.” He negotiated the Paris deal in the first place and signed it on behalf of the U.S. with his granddaughter sitting on his knee.

But for those around the world who have felt the hard edge of U.S. climate diplomacy, Kerry was no white knight. Rather he represented self-interested U.S. power and sought to paper over the political shortcomings of the biggest carbon polluter in history, even as he urged the world to do much more to cut carbon.

“You're only as good as the policy and political stance of the entity for whom you are an envoy,” said Rachel Kyte, a visiting professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. “That's been the constraint on Kerry.”

For decades, under Republican and Democrat administrations alike, the U.S. has sought to limit its own liability for the damage from its emissions, all while breaking with global norms on climate aid, pushing voluntary efforts over legally binding ones and turning multilateral climate conferences into a two-way staring match between Washington and Beijing.

The pursuit of American interests has not always chimed with what was best for the planet. Kerry urged other countries to wean off coal, oil and gas, while under Barack Obama, Trump and Biden, the U.S. built itself into the largest producer of oil and gas on the planet.

“He's been a voice that distracted from the real responsibilities of countries such as the U.S. in climate negotiations,” said Faten Aggad, an advisor to several African ministers on climate diplomacy. "He was trying to tell a different story of what the U.S. was delivering for climate, than what the administration was actually doing."

While Kerry was a “force for good” on climate change, he did not challenge some of the U.S.-driven realities that have weighed down more aggressive steps to ditch fossil fuels, said Collin Rees, U.S. program manager with Oil Change International.

Kerry would chide fossil fuel companies but then endorse natural gas as a necessary energy source, confusing the energy transition message from the world’s top oil and gas producer. In the middle of the Paris talks in 2015, then-Secretary of State Kerry stepped out of the negotiations to fly to Kosovo to stump for plans for a coal-fired power station, to be built by a U.S. company. The project was eventually abandoned after international and local outcry.

This do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do diplomacy caused officials to bridle as Kerry toured the world warning them against fossil fuel industry investments.

“It was very obnoxious to have someone on their white horse … coming to tell us you're not doing enough, when, of all countries, the U.S. is the one that's not doing enough,” said a senior Latin American climate negotiator, who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss their views of American diplomacy. “They were just full of bullshit every time they came.”

Responding to an email from POLITICO, a State Department official said: "Since Day One when he signed the instrument to rejoin the Paris Agreement, President Biden has made addressing the climate crisis at home and abroad a top priority." The official listed Biden's achievements in convening new alliances to tackle emissions in methane, shipping and business.

Kerry benefits from comparison with the previous (and potentially future) Trump administration. Biden launched the largest climate spending package in U.S. history and Kerry has warned relentlessly about the dangers of inaction.

As president, Trump dismissed the dangers of climate change as a “hoax” perpetrated by Beijing. The U.S. right has relentlessly attacked Kerry as the wastrel epitome of trading power to China for a questionable principle.

A second Trump term is widely feared by the international climate community for the damage, delay and conflict it would bring to the finely balanced U.N. system — and for the plans that Trump-linked networks are developing to dismantle Biden's climate laws, disband the U.S. government's climate science apparatus and "drill, drill, drill."

But viewed from abroad, U.S. international climate diplomacy has had some constant characteristics, no matter who is in the Oval Office.

Because of a cooling-off period baked into the Paris deal, the U.S. only actually left the agreement on November 4, 2020 — coincidentally the day after Biden was elected. That meant that through the four years of the Trump Administration, the U.S. State Department continued to send delegations to U.N. climate talks and, while notably more muted, they took hardline positions on China and climate finance that were largely a continuation of the Obama years.

"The only major difference is that the Biden administration still pretends that it cares by remaining a signatory to the Paris Agreement. But I think on substance, I personally see limited differences," said Aggad.

The return of Democrats to the White House in 2021 rebooted dialogue with China on climate change. This was largely on the back of Kerry’s deep relationship with Xie Zhenhua — the long-standing Chinese climate envoy who announced his retirement on Friday. So close was their partnership — Xie hosted an 80th birthday celebration for Kerry at the Chinese offices at the Dubai climate talks in December — that most observers believe there’s no coincidence that both chose to leave the scene in the same week. 

The pair's cooperation was an achievement given Biden’s hawkish approach to China. Their talks produced mood-lifting agreements on methane emissions and further collaboration but failed to produce major changes in the emissions trajectories in Beijing or Washington. It’s uncertain whether relations will endure the changing of the old guard.

“Both Xie and Kerry have fought hard to defend a view that’s increasingly fragile in both the U.S. and China, that to solve the climate crisis the world’s two largest emitters need to talk to each other despite of their political differences. Their legacy in that regard is unfinished at best,” said Li Shuo from the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Perhaps Kerry’s biggest constraint was Congress’ refusal to sanction funding for overseas climate efforts. A core tenet of the U.N. climate convention is the responsibility of the richest, industrialized nations to assist poorer ones to wean off fossil fuels and cope with extreme climatic upheavals.

Under Biden, the U.S. pledged to quadruple its climate finance from Obama-era levels and has made significant headway toward its $12.5 billion annual goal.

"Secretary Kerry worked tirelessly and successfully to increase support for climate action in developing countries, both support provided directly by the U.S., and by mobilizing the private sector," the State Department official said.

In 2023, the official added, the U.S. was projected to have given $9.5 billion. This compares favorably to the $8.26 billion France gave in 2022 but falls well short of estimates of America's "fair share" — which analysts at Carbon Brief set at almost $40 billion annually given its economic might and historical share of emissions.

Aware of the frustration of developing countries, Kerry resorted to creative but controversial alternatives, like a push for private companies to purchase carbon credits that would fund clean energy projects in poorer countries. This elicited howls from campaigners worried about the government shunting its responsibilities onto hard-to-regulate markets.

His subordination to U.S. domestic politics was exposed at last month’s U.N. climate summit in Dubai while rich governments pledged cash to a newly formed fund to support climate victims — a policy Kerry and the U.S. had vehemently opposed for years. Germany gave $100 million. The U.K. just over $50 million. The United Arab Emirates stumped up $100 million. Italy was roughly the same. Denmark, which has a comparable GDP to the state of Maryland, said it would give $25 million.

Then Kerry said the world's richest nation would send $17.5 million — subject to approval by Congress.

“It's like a joke having this very high, prominent political figure trying to convince everyone abroad [to act]. And that same high political figure cannot convince anyone back home at the Congress level,” the Latin American diplomat said.

On the heels of stories that he was leaving the administration, Kerry flew to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum. On arrival, he was busily assuring attendees that he was not retiring, according to one person at the Alpine conference. Far from it. He was shifting his energies to where he felt he could have the most impact: the U.S. election campaign.

As if to underscore the grip U.S. politics holds on the hopes of the rest of the world, when POLITICO called Michai Robertson, a climate negotiator from Antigua and a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, he was watching news of Trump’s romp through the Iowa caucuses. “It doesn't look good,” he said.

When asked what he thought Kerry’s legacy would be for the global climate scene, Robertson said it was indistinguishable from America's larger inconstancy. “I think one word that comes to me is turbulence.”

Zack Colman contributed reporting.