We work on climate change every day By John Kerry

Everywhere I travel as secretary of state – in every meeting, here at home and across the more than 100,000 miles I’ve traveled since I raised my hand and took the oath to serve in this office – I raise the concern of climate change.

I do so not because it’s a pet issue or a personal priority, but because it’s critical to the survival of our civilization, and that means it’s a critical mission for me as our country’s top diplomat.

Is it also personal to me? Of course it is. The environment has been one of the central causes of my lifeever since I entered public life as an activist.

When I was just 26, I attended an Earth Day celebration in Massachusetts in 1970. It was an eye-opening immersion into the power of the grassroots to identify a problem, force it onto the national radar screen, and demand action — action that would come not from the goodwill and benevolence of Washington, but because citizens demanded it. The explosion of our activism on that very first Earth Day led to the creation of the EPA, the passage of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and so much more. People demanded action and the politicians followed.

Today, people all over the world are demanding action on climate change, and those of us in positions of authority globally have a responsibility to lead the way toward progress.

So it’s personal, absolutely — but leading the way is also the right role for the United States.

We are not just the “indispensable nation” — today we must be the indispensable stewards of our shared planet. What one country does impacts the livelihoods of people elsewhere, and what we all do to address climate change now will largely determine the kind of planet we leave for our children and generations to come. From the far reaches of Antarctica’s Ross Sea to tropical wetlands in Southeast Asia, we have a responsibility to safeguard and sustainably manage our planet’s natural resources.

I am passionate about this, not based on ideology, but based on facts and based on science. It’s not just people all over the world crying out for action — it’s the very science that is screaming at us.

Twelve of the hottest 13 years on record have occurred since 2000. Glaciers are melting across the globe. Arctic sea ice volume has shrunk by 80 percent since 1979. Extreme weather events are increasing — like a massive, lethal heat wave in Moscow in 2010, enormous floods in Pakistan that same year that killed nearly 2,000 people and affected 20 million, and two “100-year droughts” in the Amazon in five years that led to the release of billions of tons of CO2, a fifth of all global CO2 emissions from energy in one year alone. In 2012, the United States endured 11 extreme climate- and weather-related events that each caused more than $1 billion in damage.

As I said in Sweden in May, climate change is truly a life-and-death challenge for all of us.

There was no mistaking President Obama’s words in his second inaugural address or in his State of the Union address this year: The United States is committed to meeting this challenge head on, working in cooperation with our partners around the world through ambitious actions to reduce emissions, transform our energy economy, and help the most vulnerable cope with the effects of climate change.

But these are not problems that can be solved by one nation alone. By definition, rescuing the planet’s climate is a global challenge that requires a global solution. So we must all demand that the biggest contributors to climate change have the most skin in the game.

That is why, shortly after I arrived at Foggy Bottom, I began working with our special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, not just to find new ways to elevate the discussion of climate change globally, but to find new ways of cooperating with other countries right now.

Dealing responsibly with the clear and present danger of climate change was the focus of my first trip to China in April. I spoke with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang about how we can work together to address the threat of climate change and its impact on our two nations’ economies and security. People on the streets of Beijing want a healthy climate just as much as people on the streets of Boston do.

I stood with State Councilor Yang Jiechi to announce that we would put our efforts on an accelerated path, making climate change and energy policy a priority at the upcoming U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

To confront this challenge head on, we created the U.S.-China Working Group. Our goal is to spur creative, cooperative new ways of addressing the climate challenge — and in its first few months, this working group has already broken new ground.

When we last met with China’s leaders in California just a couple of weekends ago, after productive and candid dialogue, President Obama and President Xi were able to announce that the United States and China have agreed to work together and with others via the Montreal Protocol to phase down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), highly potent greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air-conditioners. This could eliminate nearly two years’ worth of current global greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2050.

And next month, we have another opportunity to make progress when we meet for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, where both the United States and China will present new joint initiatives to curb climate change.

Our new climate change working group is an example of how two motivated and committed countries can take strong and swift action to reduce global emissions and put the world on the path to a clean-energy economy.

By keeping the pressure on each other to take ambitious action and replicating this effort around the world, we will create a virtuous cycle to address the climate challenge the right way: together. In a more collaborative environment, I am absolutely confident we will find the solutions and push the curve of discovery. We can do it without jeopardizing our economies — in fact, we will grow them.

And the United States will be working not just with China, but around the globe. Next I will be traveling to India, where once again climate change and energy will be vital to the conversation.

I hope you will share your thoughts and ideas on new climate initiatives we could undertake. If ever there was an issue that demanded cooperation, public participation, and committed diplomacy, this is it. More

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Arctic Council: John Kerry steps into Arctic diplomacy

Three and half a months into his tenure as US secretary of state, John Kerry is grappling with war in Syria, tensions on the Korean peninsula and other crises. But on Tuesday, he takes a short break to dive into an issue in which he has long been interested - climate change.

John Kerry

Mr Kerry arrived in Stockholm and headed to Kiruna, Sweden's northernmost city, in the province of Lapland, for a meeting of the Arctic Council.

The council, founded in 1996, brings together eight nations with land above the Arctic Circle - Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the US.

Mr Kerry, who held one of the first US Senate hearings on climate change as early as 1988 with then-Senator Al Gore, is hoping to put the spotlight on the issue of climate change again, after efforts to make concrete progress faltered during President Barack Obama's first term.

Despite a multitude of international crises, Mr Kerry insisted on attending the meeting of the once-obscure council.

Climate change has countries as far away as India also paying attention to the Arctic - and seeking observer status in the council. Melting polar ice is making mineral and oil resources easier to exploit, setting off a scramble for access. The US Geological Survey estimated in 2008 that some 22% of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas deposits were located above the Arctic Circle.

The warming climate also opens shipping routes that were once mostly inaccessible. The northern sea route would cut the distance between Shanghai and Europe by several thousands of miles, saving time and money.

China is courting Nordic countries, signing a trade agreement with Iceland and several commercial agreements with Denmark.

Greenland, a self-governing part of Denmark, is considering awarding mine exploration licenses to companies this year for a $2bn (£1.3bn) project north-east of the capital Nuuk.

One of those companies is London Mining, which would join a Chinese mining company in the project that could supply China with 15 million tonnes of iron ore a year.

China is one of 14 countries that have applied for observer status in the council, along with Japan, South Korea, India and others. Several European countries such as France and the Netherlands are already observers.

Observers do not participate in the decision-making process. But the Arctic's growing geopolitical significance allows countries with even a toehold in the small club - like China - to be closer to the action.

The council will consider the new applications during the Kiruna meeting and possibly come to a decision, which requires consensus. Canada and Russia are opposed, while the Nordic countries are in favour. More

 

Kerry says 'The science is screaming at all of us and demands action'

Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a strong Earth Day message on climate change, calling it a “clear and present danger.”

He also repeated the line from his powerful March remarks on climate change that “the science is screaming” at us to act. But that raises the question — are Kerry and his boss really listening?

The White House started sending signals last month “the president is inclined to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.” And, for what it’s worth, David Gordon, State’s director of policy planning when Condoleezza Rice was Secretary, just told a Canadian newspaper “I would say the chances are about four-to-one” Obama approves the tar sands pipeline.

Perhaps so, but then how empty would Kerry’s Earth Day message be:

This year’s Earth Day theme, the Faces of Climate Change, puts a special focus on the very real impact climate change has on people everywhere, and demonstrates just how clearly connected we all are. What one country does impacts the livelihoods of people elsewhere – and what we all do to address climate change now will largely determine the kind of planet we leave for our children and generations to come. As was clear in President Obama’s second inaugural address and in his State of the Union message, the United States is committed to meeting this challenge head on…. Dealing responsibly with the clear and present danger of climate change was a focus of my recent trip to China, and it is a challenge I will be engaging to meet everywhere I travel….

The science is screaming at all of us and demands action. From the far reaches of Antarctica’s Ross Sea to tropical wetlands in Southeast Asia, we have a responsibility to safeguard and sustainably manage our planet’s natural resources, and the United States remains firm in its commitment to addressing global environmental challenges.

One can’t, of course, “sustainably manage” the tar sands.

A must-see 2012 video explains how tar sands development threatens the carbon-rich boreal forests and their vital ecosystems. A 2012 study found that existing industry plans for exploiting the tar sands will destroy over 29,500 hectares (65%) of local carbon-rich peatland (aka bogs, moors, mires, and swamp forests) — which in turn will release the equivalent of up 173 million metric tons of CO2.

The bottom line is that Keystone is a gateway to a huge pool of carbon-intensive fuel most of which must be left in the ground — along with most of the world’s coal and unconventional oil and gas – if humanity is to avoid multiple devastating impacts that may be beyond adaptation.

Is Kerry going to accelerate the ruination of the whole world’s climate in return for not bloody much. To paraphrase Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons:

The Center for American Progress has filed its own comments on the Keystone XL Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement explaining why the pipeline is not “in the national interest”:

Dear Secretary Kerry:

We urge you to reject the resubmitted permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. It is not in the national interest of the United States because the pipeline would facilitate a dramatic increase in the production of high carbon polluting tar sands oil, but will only create very few U.S. jobs. And much of the oil transported to the Gulf Coast will be exported to other nations. The United States must not facilitate the expansion of a huge source of carbon pollution that would exacerbate climate change. The Keystone XL pipeline is all risk and no reward.

The draft Supplement Environmental Impact Statement SEIS includes the following information that reinforces that the pipeline is not in the national interest:

• Production of tar sands oil emits more carbon pollution than conventional oil, which is confirmed by independent analysis by both the Congressional Research Service and Environmental Protection Agency;
• Much of the oil transported via Keystone XL to refineries in the Gulf Coast will be refined into fuel and exported to other nations, thereby adding little to U.S. energy security.
• Only 35 permanent jobs would result from the pipeline. More