(OPINION) Former presidential candidate John Kerry claims that the U.S. was on the brink of declaring a climate emergency.
Kerry made the shocking announcement during a forum hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics last week.
“I think, personally, we’re on the brink of needing to declare a climate emergency, which is what we really have,” Kerry said to a captivated audience after recapping the most recent U.N. climate gathering.
“And we need to get people to behave as if this really is a major transitional challenge to the whole planet, to everybody.” During his chat, the former Secretary of State emphasized the global importance of the conferences, which are reportedly held worldwide and recently held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
“Nobody lives as an island in this process, on this planet,” he said. “And no one country has enough money to deal with the climate crisis.”
Kerry hopes that, despite all the political shifts happening all over the globe, science will ultimately prevail. “Everything I’ve ever done and advocated for in this is based on science. No politics. There’s no liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican electrons or molecules,” he said.
When asked by Setti Warren, director of the Institute of Politics and adjunct lecturer in public policy, the room — which was filled with future policymakers — what could be done to make climate the top issue.
“Needs people feel translate into votes on election day,” Kerry said. “We have the challenge of getting people to understand that the economics of climate work favors people who are feeling the pinch of inflation.”
Kerry encouraged voters to remember that climate efforts are important. “In Donald Trump’s first term when he pulled out of the Paris Agreement, a thousand mayors in the United States stood up and said, we’re not pulling out,” added Kerry.
“Thirty-seven governors in our country, Republican and Democrat alike, enforced the law with respect to the deployment of energy because they operate under what’s called renewable portfolio laws.”
