US climate envoy John Kerry to step down: Reports | Climate Crisis News

Kerry has been instrumental in brokering quite a few worldwide local weather agreements.

John Kerry, the US’s particular envoy on local weather, will likely be stepping down from his function as he’s anticipated to work on President Joe Biden’s re-election bid, in response to media stories.

The previous secretary of state and senator has been pushing for local weather change options throughout the Biden administration and can now assist him in publicising the president’s work on the difficulty, media reported on Saturday.

Officers mentioned Kerry introduced his resignation to Biden on Wednesday, and his workers discovered of the choice on Saturday, sources conversant in the state of affairs informed Reuters information company. He’s set to step down within the coming months.

Most not too long ago, Kerry represented the US on the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai, and in a present of uncommon unity, labored with China to assist negotiate a historic albeit watered-down agreement to transition away from oil, fuel and coal.

The US and China are the world’s two largest polluters, accounting for 41 p.c of greenhouse fuel emissions.

As local weather envoy, Kerry aimed to maintain close diplomatic ties with China on local weather change at the same time as quite a few different tensions between Washington and Beijing have simmered.

A month earlier than the summit, which befell from November 30 to December 13, 2023, Kerry welcomed his Chinese language counterpart Xie Zhenhua to draft an overview of local weather motion that partly served as the premise for the practically 200-nation Dubai deal.

Kerry has led the US delegation at three UN local weather summits.

Shortly after beating former President Donald Trump, considered one of Biden’s first strikes in workplace in 2021 was to rejoin the Paris local weather settlement, which Trump had exited.

Below that 2015 UN deal, which Kerry additionally helped dealer, international locations dedicated to limiting the Earth’s warming to “properly beneath” 2 levels Celsius (3.6 levels Fahrenheit).

In an interview with Reuters in December after COP28, Kerry mentioned he would proceed working in local weather advocacy.

“I’ll proceed so long as God provides me the breath and work on it in some way,” Kerry mentioned.