Speaker 1: Over the past several decades, one of the most prominent
Speaker 1: political figures in the United States and the world has
Speaker 1: been John Kerry. He has served as Senior Center from Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: chairman of the Center Farm Relations Committee, nominee of his
Speaker 1: party for president in two thousand four, and a Secretary
Speaker 1: of State under President Obama. Now under President Biden, he's
Speaker 1: serving a Special Envoy for Climate Change. I've known John
Speaker 1: Carey for many years, had a chance recently sit down
Speaker 1: with him and talk to him about climate change and
Speaker 1: many other issues facing the United States. I went back
Speaker 1: and looked at very few secretaries of State in the
Speaker 1: last hundred years or maybe ever, have really gone back
Speaker 1: into government. So why did you want to come back
Speaker 1: in the government for any issue? When you're you've got
Speaker 1: eight grandchildren, you've got two daughters, You've got wonderful family.
Speaker 1: Why did you want to come back in and go
Speaker 1: through this terrible process. We haven't Washington getting things through
Speaker 1: consensus and getting people to agree with what you want
Speaker 1: to do. Because I want those grandchildren to have a future.
Speaker 1: It's very simple. Uh, We're not in a good track
Speaker 1: right now the world. It's not serious enough about reducing
Speaker 1: our emissions fast enough, David. And the result is that
Speaker 1: the planet is going to continue to evolve in reaction
Speaker 1: to what we human beings are doing to it, mostly
Speaker 1: through fossil fuels. Most of the emissions that are going
Speaker 1: up nowadays into the atmosphere and are creating this increased
Speaker 1: level of energy that comes from the ocean, goes into
Speaker 1: the storms, the floods, the rain. All of it is explainable,
Speaker 1: and it's all linked to the changes we are creating
Speaker 1: on the planet. So it's very simple. I wanted to
Speaker 1: come in because I think we have a real chance
Speaker 1: now to make something happen, and I think Glasgow was
Speaker 1: a major step forward in the effort to do that.
Speaker 1: So some people urge you to run for president this
Speaker 1: most recent election, and you know, I thought, I read
Speaker 1: the newspapers and all. If it's true that you thought
Speaker 1: about it, But when Joe decided to run, you decided
Speaker 1: you were not going to run against Well, I've decided
Speaker 1: before Joe Biden decided not to run. I thought Joe
Speaker 1: Biden had a better narrative than I did, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, and he's a great friend through many
Speaker 1: many years. We've known each other way back into the
Speaker 1: early nineteen seventies, and I really thought he could win
Speaker 1: and was the best guy to go do the job.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad I made campaign for him. He gets
Speaker 1: elected and he says, guess what can you come back
Speaker 1: and serve again? Did you say I'm retired, I'm already
Speaker 1: doing other things, I don't want to do it, or
Speaker 1: do you say I really want to do this? No,
Speaker 1: I was. I was excited by the prospect. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it would be specifically, and I think we
Speaker 1: have to sort of work out the parameters to understand
Speaker 1: exactly what the dynamics would be. But the idea of
Speaker 1: having a president who wanted to get back into Paris,
Speaker 1: who wanted to make this one of his top security
Speaker 1: issues one of his top issues overall, and the idea
Speaker 1: of having a president who was going to continue to
Speaker 1: push he has been to help us get something like
Speaker 1: Glasgow was exciting and it is exciting, and I felt
Speaker 1: super motivated about that. Jim Baker once said the best
Speaker 1: job in Washington is actually secretary of State. So you've
Speaker 1: seen the presidents said that. People, All right, so you
Speaker 1: were secretary of State for four years. It's a great job.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves it. Who has that job? But now you
Speaker 1: work in the building where you were Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: but you're technically not the Secretary of State anymore. Practically,
Speaker 1: man not a right, So it's a complicated The man
Speaker 1: who was your deputy is now the Secretary of State.
Speaker 1: That's spectacular, works out. Tony is a great friend. I've
Speaker 1: known him for years. We worked on the Foreign Relacens
Speaker 1: Committee together, worked when he was in the White House. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's doing a great job. I think the administration is
Speaker 1: right on track now with respect to what's happening in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I think they've been strong and skillful, and I'm very
Speaker 1: happy doing one issue, believe me. Okay, so let's talk
Speaker 1: about Glasgow. How many times when you have international conferences,
Speaker 1: most of the things are working out in advance, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of you know, symmetry has worked out in advance,
Speaker 1: and you have press conferences, but the things that already
Speaker 1: agreed to. But my impression is in Paris and Glasgow,
Speaker 1: it wasn't all worked out in a camp, all worked
Speaker 1: out that and you know, nations have different interests. You
Speaker 1: have a hundred ninety five nations coming to the table
Speaker 1: and everybody's voice needs to be accounted for and listen
Speaker 1: to and factored into what you're doing, and some of
Speaker 1: the dynamics just don't come together until the clock strikes
Speaker 1: midnight and you know you've got to cut you know,
Speaker 1: Fisher cut bait, and they're always last minute things that
Speaker 1: rise in that context. So I understand from people were
Speaker 1: in Glasgow. I wasn't there that you were running around
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night working with other delegations
Speaker 1: trying to cut deals, and in the end people actually
Speaker 1: said it was a pretty good agreement that came out
Speaker 1: of Glasgow. Is that your your view as well? Yes,
Speaker 1: I think it was a very forward leaning, strong agreement, David.
Speaker 1: It has the single greatest raising of ambition that this
Speaker 1: process has ever achieved. It has unanimity about what has
Speaker 1: to happen in terms of raising the efforts around the world.
Speaker 1: We signed on together with the plans individual nations have,
Speaker 1: and when you tie those to the initiatives that many
Speaker 1: different countries came together to embark on themselves all together.
Speaker 1: Fati Bireaul of the International Energy Agency has run the
Speaker 1: models and all of those promises, it actually could get
Speaker 1: us to hold one point eight degrees by. Now, that's encouraging.
Speaker 1: It means you can do things that make a difference,
Speaker 1: at least in the models. The trick now not a trick.
Speaker 1: The challenge now is that over the course of the
Speaker 1: next eight years, we have to reduce emissions by at
Speaker 1: least globally in order to be able to achieve net
Speaker 1: zero by and in order to be able to hold
Speaker 1: the temperature to one point five degree are warming. So
Speaker 1: the consensus seems to be that you can't do these
Speaker 1: things overnight. So you have a period of time, you
Speaker 1: allow people to change their habits, and so the consensus
Speaker 1: is that by twenty fifty is the time we want
Speaker 1: to measure success. Is that right? Yes, But this is
Speaker 1: not a politically arrived at, our ideologically arrived at goal.
Speaker 1: This is coming from thousands of scientists, and they're the
Speaker 1: ones who tell us in the last report of that
Speaker 1: if we want to avoid the worst consequences of the
Speaker 1: climate crisis, we have to reduce our emissions and get
Speaker 1: to net zero by The only way to get to
Speaker 1: net zero is to begin now to reduce, because there's
Speaker 1: no curve steep enough to reduce later. You've got to
Speaker 1: start now. That's why the next eight years, this decade,
Speaker 1: those scientists have said to us, to avoid the worst
Speaker 1: consequences of the climate crisis, you must reduce the emissions
Speaker 1: by over the net ten years. That's so we've set
Speaker 1: our our goal. President Biden has set a goal that
Speaker 1: we will reduce our missions by fifty over these next
Speaker 1: eight years. In Canada's about forty five to fifty, Japan fifty,
Speaker 1: Europe production, UK percent production, South Africa fifty. So people
Speaker 1: have stepped up. We now have six of global g
Speaker 1: d P committed to hold on to the one point
Speaker 1: five degrees. But that means obviously you have thirty that
Speaker 1: isn't so. Our Our effort now, David is called implementation plus.
Speaker 1: We want to implement the promises that were made in
Speaker 1: Glasgow and we want to add to them to bring
Speaker 1: that other of the people to the table. If everybody
Speaker 1: does what we said we would do. Currently, currently that's
Speaker 1: without eight or nine countries that make an enormous difference
Speaker 1: to this. But currently they say we could get to
Speaker 1: one point eight degrees by that's pretty amazing. And if
Speaker 1: we can do that without China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico,
Speaker 1: South Africa, Saudi Arabia, a group of countries. We need
Speaker 1: them to come aboard. If we get everybody on board,
Speaker 1: we could actually keep one point five degrees alive or
Speaker 1: minimize the damage that has done. So the countries you mentioned,
Speaker 1: they haven't signed on to this yet completely. They've signed
Speaker 1: on to various efforts. I mean, China does have a
Speaker 1: plan in place, it's just that it doesn't in our judgment.
Speaker 1: We need to go further faster, and that judgment is
Speaker 1: reinforced by the judgment of the International Energy Agency that
Speaker 1: says last year cole went up over where we were
Speaker 1: in round the world, around the world, but the US
Speaker 1: went up to didn't It went up here too, Yes,
Speaker 1: there was a tick up. In addition, uh, there's about
Speaker 1: three hundred giga lots of new coal construction coming online
Speaker 1: at a time where the International Energy Agency says you've
Speaker 1: got to reduce coal plants by eight hundred and seventy watts.
Speaker 1: So the imbalance of that is dangerous for everybody. It's
Speaker 1: at the heart of what we have to really try
Speaker 1: to tackle them. One of the challenges has been the
Speaker 1: developing nations, and some people would say China, even though
Speaker 1: it's the gigantic economy is a developing nation and India
Speaker 1: gigantic economy of developing nation. They say, well, you guys
Speaker 1: in the West, you've been polluting for a long time.
Speaker 1: Why don't we get a chance to pollute for a
Speaker 1: while and get our economy in better shape, and then
Speaker 1: we'll negotiate some reduction images. It won't be much world
Speaker 1: left to negotiate. It's very simple, all right. That's the
Speaker 1: argument that they know. It's not it's a it's a reality.
Speaker 1: No country can solve this problem by itself, no country.
Speaker 1: If we went to zero missions tomorrow, we still need China, Russia,
Speaker 1: Indian all these other countries to be on board. Now
Speaker 1: the argument. I've heard this argument face to face with
Speaker 1: different ministers and people who say, wait a minute, you
Speaker 1: guys were doing this a long time ago. You've had
Speaker 1: more years to do it. Yes, But here's the butt capitalized.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until in nineteen nineties beginning that this issue
Speaker 1: suddenly arose and people were aware of what we were doing.
Speaker 1: And from that point in time we have made bona
Speaker 1: fide efforts continually to try to be fair and bring
Speaker 1: people to the table and spend money and change the
Speaker 1: dynamic until Glasgow, with the Chinese were saying recently, well,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of issues with the United States,
Speaker 1: and let's put them all together and we'll resolve all issues,
Speaker 1: including climate change. I understand you kind of did some
Speaker 1: negotiating in Glasgow, and you've got the Chinese degree that
Speaker 1: will separate out the climate change issue. Is that fair? Yes, well,
Speaker 1: we we had agreed to separate it out previously, and
Speaker 1: President Biden and President She had talked about it, uh,
Speaker 1: and that has been our point of view from the
Speaker 1: very beginning. Here. This is not an issue. This is
Speaker 1: not a bilateral issue. This isn't an issue between China
Speaker 1: and the United States, except to the degree that if
Speaker 1: one or the other is is UH continuing the problem,
Speaker 1: we all have a right to push back. This is
Speaker 1: a global issue. Every country can do things that make
Speaker 1: a difference here. I mean, China is about thirty of
Speaker 1: all the emissions on the planet, the US is about
Speaker 1: ten percent now, and then you have India behind us,
Speaker 1: the EU, UH, Russia, Indonesia, and and sequentially down to
Speaker 1: about two and one point something percent of all the emissions,
Speaker 1: so twenty countries. David, Basically the g twenty but twenty countries,
Speaker 1: not exclusively G twenty account for eighty percent of all
Speaker 1: the emissions on the planet. So if you can get
Speaker 1: those twenty countries to come together and work fast enough,
Speaker 1: we can really have a profound impact on the choices
Speaker 1: that other governments are making. I e. What happens in
Speaker 1: Africa as they developed. We want them to develop. We
Speaker 1: want Latin America to development. We want South Asia develop more,
Speaker 1: but we want them to develop clean smart That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean building coal, It means using renewables, moving into new energy,
Speaker 1: and we have to develop further battery storage, clean hydrogen.
Speaker 1: We have to UH carbon capture, which could make an
Speaker 1: enormous difference and utilization of that carbon for one product
Speaker 1: or another. So there's a lot of research being done,
Speaker 1: but not even enough research being done at this point
Speaker 1: in time now. In the Build Back Better legislation, a
Speaker 1: large part of it was incentives for people to convert
Speaker 1: to UM more energy UM i'd say efficient kinds of
Speaker 1: UH way of getting things done, and and renewables and
Speaker 1: softwath tax and centives, a whole variety of things. I
Speaker 1: think maybe five billion dollars of total value UM that
Speaker 1: legislation installed now So what do people say to you
Speaker 1: at Glasgow? They say, wait a second, you have all
Speaker 1: those decent centives, but you're not getting them through the Congress,
Speaker 1: so why should we listen to you. Well, there are
Speaker 1: people who asked that question, No question about it, I've
Speaker 1: heard it. The fact is that the Infrastructure Bill, which
Speaker 1: President Biden proposed and has passed and signed into law,
Speaker 1: has in it major initiatives to deal with planet, with
Speaker 1: the with the global crisis, and and so for instance,
Speaker 1: building charging stations around the nation, helping with incentives for
Speaker 1: the conversion to electric vehicles, building out a grid in America,
Speaker 1: a smart grid with transmission, and so forth. There's about
Speaker 1: I think it's about sixty seventy billion dollars in there
Speaker 1: for that. So there are major steps that are already passed.
Speaker 1: And I know the President is going to continue to
Speaker 1: try to fight for the best parts of what he
Speaker 1: thinks he could get through on the what was bill
Speaker 1: back better. I don't know if it will be that
Speaker 1: or something else, but we need that. We need that
Speaker 1: for the planet. It's not just what we do in
Speaker 1: America will matter enormously to what happens in many other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. So um, Let's say I'm a
Speaker 1: country that is in Glasgow and I'm sitting down with
Speaker 1: you privately, and I say, I know you. You have
Speaker 1: the best of intentions, and presidents the best of intentions.
Speaker 1: But Donald Trump's popularity seems to be still high. He
Speaker 1: could get elected again. So why should I listen to you,
Speaker 1: because we could go through this whole thing about the
Speaker 1: United States pulling out of these agreements again. It do
Speaker 1: you have that question? I don't believe I've had that question, sure,
Speaker 1: but I believe and I think you'll agree with me.
Speaker 1: There is no way any president down the road. And
Speaker 1: I believe President Biden. You know, he's got three more
Speaker 1: years and then I think he could be elected and
Speaker 1: re elected will be because of what he has achieved.
Speaker 1: And once we get beyond COVID, once we see this
Speaker 1: transition between you know, taking hold. Our economy is doing
Speaker 1: pretty well and and the unemployment is very low. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the uncertainty right now revolves around COVID
Speaker 1: UH and the other things. But let me just say this,
Speaker 1: No president in the future would walk into the White
Speaker 1: House and undo what is going on around the world.
Speaker 1: This is bigger than the United States. What is this response.
Speaker 1: People all around the world are retooling. Here in America.
Speaker 1: Do you think Ford Motor Company and General Motors, which
Speaker 1: have completely retooled in are retooling their factories to build
Speaker 1: electric You think there's suddenly they'll say, no, electrics not
Speaker 1: the future. Electric is the future for automobiles all around
Speaker 1: the world. That's already happening, the pace at which electric
Speaker 1: is in demand and being built. Why is Tesla the
Speaker 1: highest value company in the world and all that produces
Speaker 1: is electric cars and electric vehicles. So I think that no,
Speaker 1: with the trillions of dollars that are going into clean hydrogen,
Speaker 1: into batteries and battery storage, carbon capture, while companies all
Speaker 1: around the world. You know this, David. You you sit
Speaker 1: on boards, You're been a CEO. There are board rooms
Speaker 1: all around the planet in which the discussion is about
Speaker 1: e s G. Environment, social and governance. People are concerned
Speaker 1: about being responsible. The finance sector is going to demand
Speaker 1: disclosure of risk, so people are going to be making
Speaker 1: risk judgments about the kinds of investments that are being made.
Speaker 1: And and I think I don't see any politician anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world undoing what is happening in the private
Speaker 1: sector today, and that's going to continue. It's going to
Speaker 1: grow far above what it is today. Let's suppose I
Speaker 1: say to you, I agree with what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: actually I'm not that able to impact climate change. I'm
Speaker 1: just a capitalist. I want to an investor. Am I
Speaker 1: going to be able to make money by investing in
Speaker 1: this climate change economy? Or am I going to lose money?
Speaker 1: You're gonna be able to make money. But it's going
Speaker 1: to happen, and and there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: already investing in it and making money. I know people
Speaker 1: in certain parts of the world. They will remain nameless,
Speaker 1: but they're invested to the tune of billions of dollars
Speaker 1: in alternative renewable energy, and they're deploying it around the world.
Speaker 1: It is cheaper to do that than it is to
Speaker 1: build a coal plant, then to buy the coal. It's
Speaker 1: cheaper than it is for fossil fuel today. And if if,
Speaker 1: if people did real accounting, which they don't do, the
Speaker 1: real cost of fossil fuel ought to contain the damage
Speaker 1: to the atmosphere, the damage to the planet, the warming
Speaker 1: of the ocean, the black lung disease, the health effects
Speaker 1: I mean, the real cost of this is way beyond
Speaker 1: what's factored in at the pump or anywhere else. And
Speaker 1: you know that. So because there are subsidies. We have
Speaker 1: about two and a half trillion dollars of subsidies built
Speaker 1: into the system. Last year there's about four billion dollars
Speaker 1: of subsidies to what to fossil fuel, which is causing
Speaker 1: the problem. That doesn't make sense, David, And so I
Speaker 1: think that you're going to see a sea change. Look
Speaker 1: at what happened in next on Mobile. Three seats on
Speaker 1: the board of directors have gone to people who have
Speaker 1: been active caring about climate and has changed what that
Speaker 1: company is thinking about and doing with respect to it.
Speaker 1: So you obviously are passionate about the subject. I assume
Speaker 1: fair to say, well, I'm passionate about it because I
Speaker 1: think because the the negatives that will come with ignoring
Speaker 1: this further are so identifiable. It's almost like the vaccination issue.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into it too deeply, but
Speaker 1: the people dying are unvaccinated and the people going to
Speaker 1: hospital and vaccinated. Do you get a message from that, Well,
Speaker 1: it's about the same thing here. We're spending hundreds of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars cleaning up the mess after a storm
Speaker 1: that we might have been better off preventing in the
Speaker 1: first place. And if all the literature is clear, all
Speaker 1: the economic analysis is clear, it will cost us far
Speaker 1: more not to take action than it costs to take action.
Speaker 1: So common sense says, let's let's get to work. You
Speaker 1: came to Washington as a senator. How is Washington different
Speaker 1: than is it it's night and day? Because then there
Speaker 1: was bipartisanship to some extent, well, there was to more
Speaker 1: than some extent. I mean, I could remember we get
Speaker 1: together in the in the city on a given night,
Speaker 1: and and we'd have Republicans and Democrats at the table
Speaker 1: and eat dinner and laugh and tell jokes and do
Speaker 1: some business too. And the next day you could come
Speaker 1: into the Senate and build on what had happened. That
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. I think that's changed a lot of reasons, David, not,
Speaker 1: the least of which is the amount of money it
Speaker 1: takes to run for office in America. Now it's it's
Speaker 1: a huge amounts of money, and there's a perennial there's
Speaker 1: a constant process of having to get on an airplane
Speaker 1: and go raise money. So as you look at your
Speaker 1: incredible career in public service, what would you say you're
Speaker 1: most proud of having achieved so far? I've never said
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to answer that. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: proud that, you know, for twenty eight years I had
Speaker 1: the privilege of representing messages It's and we did some
Speaker 1: very exciting things with health care and children and on
Speaker 1: the Foreign Relations Committee ending a War with Vietnam with
Speaker 1: John McCain. He and I worked hard on PO W
Speaker 1: M I A to try to put the Vietnam War
Speaker 1: to bed really and to do it the right way
Speaker 1: by answering the questions families had about the missing in
Speaker 1: action and prisoners. Uh. And I'm proud of that. I'm
Speaker 1: proud of keeping faith with with combatants in that effort.
Speaker 1: I mean, there many things. I think the Iran Nuclear
Speaker 1: Agreement was one of the strongest nuclear agreements in history,
Speaker 1: and tragically President pulled out of that and now you
Speaker 1: see where we are. An is back, the nuclear weapon
Speaker 1: is threatening again, and we're in a far more dangerous
Speaker 1: world as a result of what he did. So I'm
Speaker 1: proud of what we did on that agreement. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the Paris Agreement, in the Glasgow Agreement,
Speaker 1: those I think are perhaps, if we look at where
Speaker 1: we're heading and what we need to do, among the
Speaker 1: most important things any of us could have done. So
Speaker 1: as you look back on your career, you no regrets
Speaker 1: you didn't go into private equity, investment, banking, something important
Speaker 1: like that, Well, life would be easier, indifferent probably, but no,
Speaker 1: I've loved every minute of what I've done, and I
Speaker 1: you know, who knows, maybe there's still time to do
Speaker 1: some of that. So you have eight grandchildren when you're
Speaker 1: blended family, what do they call you a secretary or
Speaker 1: or a special envoy or what do they call you? Uh,
Speaker 1: depends what mood, but mostly grandpa, Mostly I am I'm
Speaker 1: grandpa unless on words, I can't even begin to describe
Speaker 1: and tell them about climate change very much. They're not
Speaker 1: that focused on it, or no, they're not that focused. Happily,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen