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10 Actions Climate Envoy John Kerry Can Take To Win The Climate War

This article is more than 3 years old.

One of incoming President Biden’s biggest policy priorities will be to combat the climate crisis. Scientists revealed this week that the planet is now experiencing one of the hottest years since records began in the mid-1800s.

Last week, President-elect Joe Biden appointed former U.S. Secretary of State and 2004 Presidential Candidate, John Kerry as his U.S. Presidential Special Envoy for Climate Change.

The battle for climate change will be won or lost among the roughly 160 non-OECD rapidly industrializing countries, with 80% of the world’s population. If these countries industrialize to meet U.S. standards of living, the world will burn through four times its planetary resources.

So Special Envoy Kerry will need to ensure the U.S. practices what it preaches - moving toward a new, aspirational economic model that is high-income but with a significantly lower environmental footprint.

This means halving U.S. carbon dioxide emissions within just ten years to meet the Paris Climate Agreement. That is just to avoid runaway climate change: a lot more also needs to be done to avoid planetary pollution (i.e., eliminating plastics, fertilizers, pesticides, industrial waste), addressing biodiversity loss and reducing over-exploitation of nature (i.e., significantly reduce overfishing, deforestation, urban sprawl, harmful agricultural practices) in order to stay within our planetary boundaries.

But it is not a doom and gloom story, as many exciting new solutions exist that achieve all this and create trillions of dollars of new economic value.

This is why it is so critical that the proposed $2 trillion Biden Climate Plan which the Presidential Campaign ran on, finds unconventional solutions that can rapidly scale up. This is in addition to building a strong international climate coalition. Unexpected progress over the past few years, such as the rapid growth of plant-based proteins and rapid adoption of electric vehicles have shown that many ‘tipping points’ could be achieved with the right enabling interventions, that may be driven by a more environmentally-conscious younger generation around the world.

There are important lessons from the U.S. Government response to the 2008 Financial Crisis, the Obama-era Power Africa initiative and the global struggle against the coronavirus pandemic, of what worked and what didn’t, that could lead to these ‘tipping points’ of change.

What is clear, is leaving a legacy of glitzy international summits (as President Macron appears to have done) and glossy policy papers will not be enough. Concrete actions are being demanded of leaders in response to the climate crisis, as yet another year is lost because an important climate summit in Glasgow is pushed back to November 2021.

Secretary Kerry will need a robust first ‘100 Day of Actions’ if he is to show the world how to ‘Build back Better,’ as the Biden campaign promised.

What is the role of a U.S. Presidential Special Envoy and what actions could he take to make a meaningful and long-lasting impact on climate change?

Use of Presidential Special Envoys

Special Envoys are an unusual administrative device. They carry more weight than Presidential Special Advisers, but do not have the full operational responsibilities of running a large Ministry, with all the red tape that take up the day to day calendar of most U.S. Secretaries.

The use of Special Envoys have had a mixed history of success in the past, with some achieving more traction on issues than others. Some of the most successful U.S. Special Envoys oversaw major peace agreements such as U.S. Senator George Mitchell under President Bill Clinton whose six year involvement in the Northern Ireland Peace Talks led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Other high profile Special Envoys on international affairs include former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who acted as Special Representative of the Quartet (the U.S., UN, EU and Russia) for eight years between 2007 and 2015 to oversee the Middle East Peace Process.

The use of Presidential Special Envoys significantly increased under President Obama, where their numbers reached 24. They were primarily focused on building coalitions and raising the profile of particular issues (such as Ocean Science under Special Envoy Dr Jane Lubchenco, who was a former Administrator of NOAA and oversaw the NOAA response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill). These are non-Senate confirmed positions, usually based in the U.S. State Department, and with staff size typically ranging between 1 and 30.

Under President Trump, the State Department’s budget, diplomatic staff and programs were slashed. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attempted to reduce the U.S. State Department’s budget by 30%. Secretary of State Pompeo only appointed five Special Envoys, primarily focused on national security issues such as the talks with North Korea, and security issues regarding Afghanistan and Iraq.

Historically, Special Envoys have had three main levers of influence. First, raising media attention to particular issues. Second, building large international coalitions around particular topics. Third, elevating issues to the President more directly than through the usual civil service channels.

Secretary Kerry will need to think a lot more unconventionally about his levers of influence if the world is going to win the war against the climate crisis. His success will depend on how he chooses to define the role.

An Empowered Special Envoy

It is important to recognize that Secretary Kerry is more empowered than many historical Presidential Special Envoys. There are three reasons for this.

  • The Climate Envoy is now a Cabinet Level Appointment. This is important as Secretary Kerry will be able to ensure climate issues have a front row seat at some of the key decision-making forums at the heart of the Executive Branch of Government with direct access to all U.S. Secretaries. He will need this access in order to work closely with the Secretaries of Transportation, Energy, Agriculture and the Treasury who are all critical to achieving the low carbon growth plan.

  • Secretary Kerry will sit on the National Security Council. The climate crisis is as much a National Security issue as an environmental crisis. Millions will be impacted if the world cannot address the climate crisis in time, and the most cost effective way to address such social and economic unrest, is by addressing the climate crisis before it becomes to large to manage, as the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has shown around the world.

  • Addressing climate change was a key Presidential electoral promise. Both President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have made addressing the climate crisis one of their signature campaign pledges, with a comprehensive $2 trillion Clean Energy Plan. Secretary Kerry was involved in developing many of these policies over the summer. This empowers Secretary Kerry to explore bold solutions, knowing that he has strong backing from the Presidential team.

Headwinds the Special Envoy will face

However, Secretary Kerry faces significant domestic and international challenges to make headway on major climate issues.

  • International Diplomacy. Secretary Kerry also faces a series of complex international leadership challenges, where the Governments of India, Brazil, Russia, Australia and Japan (until last month) have continued to push environmentally destructive and pro-fossil fuel policies. The EU, U.K. and China have been more outspoken on environmental issues in the past five years since the Paris Climate Agreement, but even they have been criticized for falling short with their post-coronavirus stimulus packages, and recent decisions that attracted significant criticism such as on the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy and at the International Maritime Organization last month.

  • A post-pandemic stimulus package. In addition to the campaign pledges, the coronavirus stimulus response is an important window of opportunity to push forward a bold climate plan. Lessons from the 2008 Financial Crisis of what changes stuck and what did not show that the post-virus stimulus package will define the next decade of U.S. growth. For example, the 2009 Stimulus Package that (then) Vice President Biden was part of, saw support for electric vehicle companies. Ten years later, a U.S. automotive company, Tesla TSLA , is now the most valuable carmaker in the world for the first time in half a century - four times the value of Ford and General Motors combined - with dozens of new U.S. based autonomous vehicle companies looking to disrupt the sector even further. This was a position largely unthinkable in 2008 in the depths of the financial crisis. This is the sort of vision needed by the incoming Presidential team.

Hitting ‘tipping points’ to creating a permanent climate legacy

Secretary Kerry will need to identify policy ‘tipping points’ that lead to permanent and irreversible change within a short period of time. With President Trump winning 74 million votes (an increase of 5 million since the 2016 election), conventional policy levers cannot be all that the incoming Biden Administration relies on. The Climate Plan also cannot solely be internationally focused, as the U.S. will need to role model the climate actions it expects others to take. This will fall within the scope of how Secretary Kerry will need to think about his role as Special Envoy.

While many policies are already defined in the Biden Clean Energy and Infrastructure Plan, here are ten actions that could accelerate the implementation of this plan. They are a balance of international and domestic climate actions.

10 bold actions to implement the Biden Climate Plan

These are all actions that U.S. Special Envoy John Kerry could take in his first 100 days to address the climate crisis.

1. Rebuild the China-U.S. Climate Partnership

The China-US Climate Partnership is the single most important international relationship to achieve the planet’s climate goals. Secretary Kerry will need to get this right.

The U.S. is responsible for 15% of annual carbon dioxide emissions, and China is responsible for 28%. However, historically, this is reversed with the U.S. responsible for generating 25% of all cumulative carbon dioxide emissions compared to China’s 13%, since the industrial revolution of the 1750s.

In the last five years, the Chinese Government has taken environmental issues a lot more seriously, including making a commitment in September to be carbon neutral by 2060. While there are tensions with China on other issues, climate and the environment could be one where important progress could be achieved.

It will also be important for the U.S. and China to agree that their financial institutions should not be funding any more fossil fuel investments anywhere else in the world (new or existing investments). The Chinese banking system has assets of $40 trillion, compared to $23 trillion for the U.S. Banking System. The big four Chinese banks dominate with assets of $15 trillion.

The U.S. and China have the largest energy and fossil fuel financing organizations in the world, such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank or AIIB ($30 billion energy and infrastructure assets), New Development Bank or NDB ($15 billion of energy and infrastructure projects approved), OPIC (recently renamed as the U.S. Development Finance Corporation) with over $25 billion exposure, the U.S. Export-Import Bank or Ex-Im Bank with an exposure of $135 billion, in addition to State Aid, State-backed and private banks. With new technologies about to disrupt major banking institutions, this may be a fortuitous opportunity to launch a new era of Green FinTech to meet climate goals.

2. Establish new U.S. Green Trade Corridors

Negotiating complex multilateral treaties are time consuming (as Secretary Kerry has direct experience of with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and the 2016 Kigali Accord on the Ozone Layer). This is time the world no longer has. In most cases (such as the Paris Climate Agreement), compromises meant these treaties are often significantly watered down (from the 1.5C compulsory target to weaker enforcement around 2C).

Bilateral agreements could be a more efficient solution. Given the importance of the U.S. markets to many countries around the world, and influence that the U.S. exerts in most economic and diplomatic networks, there may be an innovative set of partnerships that could be rapidly developed among a new ‘climate coalition of the willing.’

For example, by requiring shipping and aviation travelling to the U.S. to meet stricter emission targets, this would force the creation of new Green Trade corridors, as environmental NGO Pacific Environment have been calling for. This would also become a new competitive advantage for countries seeking to enter U.S. markets.

Steps have already begun in this direction. A new U.S. bill called Ocean Climate Based Solutions Act (OBSCA) was introduced in October that could be a pre-cursor to the EU’s shipping emissions scheme. This would create a cluster of countries who are prepared to meet the higher emission standards for key modes of transport (e.g., EU, U.K., Canada, and potentially even China), and would be a green parallel to the One Belt One Road initiative or the 15-nation RCEP Free Trade Area announced in November.

3. Place Climate at center of the strategy of Multilateral Organizations

The U.S. wields significant influence over most of the world’s multilateral institutions. However, under President Trump, U.S. influence has waned.

Many multilateral institutions have continued to push pro-fossil fuel policies, with dubious procurement procedures, in spite of having sustainability soundbites written in their annual reports and policy papers.

With the U.S. having many Executive Director seats on multilateral organizations, including veto power over key decisions, this is an opportunity to insist on a zero tolerance toward any fossil fuel investments by these multilateral institutions, and to wind down any existing exposure to fossil fuel projects (e.g., assistance for oil refineries or petrochemical hubs).

These multilateral institutions include the International Maritime Organization which governs global shipping, the sixth highest emitter of greenhouse gases, (the U.S. holds an influential Tier A membership and made a specific pledge on shipping under the Biden campaign), the World Bank (and its private sector arms of the IFC and MIGA), the IMF (which should be assessing climate risk as a key part of its Article 4 inspections of national economies), regional banks such as the African Development Bank (which has continued to push Heavy Fuel Oil power stations throughout Africa, describing them as ‘meeting sustainability goals’).

4. Harness the power of the G20

Under President Trump, many regional organizations have also waned in influence. The G20 body of the twenty wealthiest nations covering 80% of the global economy is one potential grouping to revitalize.

Under President Obama’s term, the G20 was influential in pushing through legislation against tax havens (Base Erosion Profit Shifting) and climate change (via Central Banks starting to disclose climate risk to their economies).

There are many multilateral bodies that have been captured by the fossil fuel industry (such as the International Maritime Organization that governs global shipping). Now is the time for a rethink about whether these organizations are fit for purpose, and ready to meet the climate needs of the next decade.

The G20 could be ideally placed to take on the challenge of reviewing and reforming these industries, provided there is the right leadership to oversee these reforms, with strong environmental credentials.

5. Establish an International Climate Watchdog to address Greenwashing, Corruption and Diversity issues

It is unclear whether the existing organizations can sufficiently reform themselves in time to drive such a profound shift. New, independent and empowered oversight will be required.

Corruption, Greenwashing and Diversity issues have increased and have been undermining the climate and environmental movement in recent years.

In many parts of the world, corruption around clean energy procurement processes have increased and are hampering and undermining the adoption of clean energy technologies. Procurement solutions need to be found for countries to invest in clean energy in ways that are swifter, more transparent and achieve the right outcomes for countries and the climate. Fixing energy procurement processes will make a significant impact on global efforts to abate carbon dioxide emissions.

In addition, the world is now in an era of ‘fake news’ and sophisticated misinformation campaigns that hide how green particular initiatives are. Such misinformation has either delayed green efforts or promoted more polluting efforts under the guise of being green (as revealed with several heavy fuel oil power stations in Africa that were claimed to be in line with sustainability goals). Such misinformation efforts are likely to increase in response to a more pro-environmental stand being taken by President-elect Biden.

Just as Facebook has announced efforts to combat misinformation on its platform, a reinvigorated U.S. State Department and USAID could use new technologies to robustly assess and address how green certain efforts are. This could be done by supporting civil society organizations that work on environmental fact-checking in these areas. With 195 countries in the world and 60,000 existing power plants (with plans for the U.S. alone set to open almost 200 new gas-fired power stations under President Trump), these are manageable numbers that new data science and satellite capabilities can force radical transparency upon. Such an effort will enable the public around the world to see just how green these investments are and whether the financing organizations are being true to their word.

Most philanthropic and state environmental funding to third party organizations are often channeled to organizations that do not have diverse leadership. The fact that many philanthropic environmental organizations do not even record this data shows how far behind the environmental industry is. President-elect Biden and Vice-President-elect Harris have promised a new era of Climate Justice. It will be important to use the power of data transparency to address diversity issues among under-represented groups in the environment movement, and increase their say in climate and environmental issues. This starts with accurate reporting of this data.

6. Ensure credible Industry Transition Roadmaps

If Special Envoy Kerry is going to ask countries to transition to a low carbon pathway, the U.S. will have to role-model the transition needed. The Biden Plan has a lot of high level statements around clean energy, zero emission transportation, low carbon housing and environmental justice. However, translating this into concrete actions will require credible industry roadmaps so investors have regulatory certainty for how to invest $2 trillion into such a transition.

Industry transition plans for four sectors are high priority: power generation, transportation, agriculture and manufacturing. These four account for the vast majority of carbon dioxide emissions.

These industry transition plans for the U.S. can then be taken to other countries facing similar challenges with the transition to low carbon growth pathways.

Thinking unconventionally, accelerating the growth of plant-based diets, shifting toward autonomous and electric vehicles, investing in electric waterway transportation, sustainable forestry wooden housing, and even new sectors such as offshore seaweed farming, are the new economic sectors of the future that could create jobs and meet climate objectives.

It will also identify anomalies (for example, despite strong green position statements, California continues to invest in polluting diesel ferries rather than electric vessels for passenger and cargo transport along its waterways).

7. Fixing Climate Finance

Secretary Kerry will need to work closely with the new Biden economic team. Fortunately, many are familiar faces. Former Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen has been nominated as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Former Obama official and Blackrock BLK executive Brian Deese was earlier announced as Director of the National Economic Council. Internationally, former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has been appointed as Special Climate Finance Advisor to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the run up to the Glasgow Climate Summit.

All three were instrumental in a set of initiatives to force the financial disclosure of climate risk (called Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures or TCFD) that was led by the G20 under Mark Carney and when Janet Yellen was Chair of the Federal Reserve, and co-sponsored by Mayor Bloomberg.

This effort was well designed but poorly executed, relying on traditional audit firms to model climate risks among many of the 1000 companies that had signed up. Instead, automated models could have more rapidly scaled climate transparency.

This is where Special Envoy Kerry could build on 2015 policies, but this time encourage technologies and solutions that would be transformative over the next decade.

8. Smarter investments in Science and Technology

The Biden Plan talks about creating a new energy research division focused on climate change called ARPA-C (ARPA standing for Advanced Research Projects Agency). This calls for deep research in breakthrough technologies such as grid storage, battery technologies, nuclear technologies, refrigerants and new soil management techniques.

Redeploying capital within existing scientific institutions would also prove transformative, such as increasing NASA’s budget for Earth Observation or ensuring a higher proportion of autonomous technologies are used within NOAA to increase the return on such investments in science.

These are areas where international collaborations could also prove fruitful, in the same way that the International Space Station built strong international partnerships. Europe has been attempting to explore such deep research through its Horizon 2021-2027 program, with its previous seven year research budget of almost $100 billion.

Establish Climate Technology Partnerships

Going beyond science, the Biden Plan also describes the need to increase R&D and use procurement levers to accelerate the adoption of new and sustainable technologies.

These include carbon capture technologies, that Bill Gates and former Vice President Al Gore, have been particular champions of. New technologies such as mehane satellites being pioneered by environmental NGO, Environmental Defense Fund, alternative fuels such as green hydrogen, new satellite surveillance of environmentally destructive activities.

Bolder technology solutions may also be needed, such as establishing a coral growing industry, exploring solar reflection, cloud seeding, iceberg creation and preventing desertification to avoid some of the worst extremes of climate change that is already being felt in many parts of the world. These technologies may not need to be deployed in the U.S., but they may need to be invented in the U.S. to avoid some of the climate impacts being felt in small island states and in West Africa or North West India turning into a major international migration and security crisis.

Many island, native American and Arctic communities are on the front lines of climate change. U.S. States of Hawaii, Alaska and territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands could be at the forefront of leadership into these technologies, on how to not just stop the harm from climate but restore nature to its pristine conditions.

9. Establish new Climate Business Clusters within each State

One of the pathways each industry can scale up is through demonstration projects across State utilities, cities and industry clusters.

These demonstration projects give an opportunity for other countries to see how the new energy transition will work in practice across industries they also have around the world.

This includes existing industries but also new industries such as seaweed farming and processing, sustainable forestry plantations, electric ferry hubs, and offshore windfarms.

Establishing Climate Enterprise Zones with more streamlined regulations could help fast-track these efforts and also give new life to many locations that have been suffering with the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

10. Build State and City Coalitions

Secretary Kerry may also need to work with a coalition of willing U.S. States and Cities, who could role model the change needed and receive additional Federal support for achieving such a transition.

Part of the solution is making Federal and State Funds work more effectively together. Part is identifying regulations that act as barriers to prevent climate-smart policies from being adopted. And part is raising awareness within these States about the new economic and environmental possibilities.

Mayor Bloomberg and the Rockefeller Foundation have already funded 100 cities that could drive this change. Efforts such as Cycle Lanes, Low Emission Zones and Electric Delivery Trucks in cities could be transformational.

Achieving a tipping point in the Climate Crisis

The incoming Biden team have a unique opportunity to achieve a tipping point in climate change.

This will require a range of new tools available to them, going beyond just traditional policy and communication levers.

At the same time, ‘antibodies’ resistant to change are likely to emerge from the system to undermine and dampen these efforts for change. It will take a smart team at the top to overcome these hurdles, that use all the resources that may be available to them, and build a truly inclusive international movement.

Secretary Kerry is no stranger to big challenges or to conflict, having served as a Swift Boat Commander in the Vietnam War.

It will take all his military and political experience to take on the Special Climate Envoy role and win the Climate War.