Former US climate envoy John Kerry said the world is set to blow past a goal of limiting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, raising doubts about whether even “clawing back” to that target is possible.
In an interview, Kerry and his new business partner, Tom Steyer, join the chorus of voices worldwide saying the target of holding global warming to within 1.5C (2.7F) is no longer within reach. Global temperatures this year will likely register an average 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time, a prospect that cast a pall over this week’s COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.
“We are in a place where we’re going to blow by 1.5 degrees, with the best hope that we’re in a position for what’s called a ‘clawback’ — that you can somehow claw your way back to 1.5,” said Kerry, who recently joined Steyer’s Galvanize Climate Solutions venture capital firm.
“I have serious reservations about whether what we’ve seen of human nature thus far would encourage you to believe we’re actually going to claw back that far,” he added.
‘Trump can’t stop switch to clean tech’
Still, Kerry and Steyer remain confident that efforts to transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy will survive President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to roll back some of President Joe Biden’s climate policies. Trump won’t be able to stop the switch to cleaner technologies, both because it’s happening worldwide and because it’s being driven by business, they said.
“The US is going to power through,” Steyer said. “This is going to be done on the basis of money, returns, business economics. There’s no policy that undoes that.”
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com