John Kerry, President Biden’s climate czar, will leave his post later this winter to focus on his boss’s re-election campaign.
The 80-year-old former secretary of state and former Democratic presidential nominee — who has drawn criticism for his lavish jet sets while preaching energy conservation for the masses — told his staff about his departure after speaking with Biden Wednesday, Axios reported on Saturday.
The administration has not chosen a successor for Kerry, who has been Biden’s top climate diplomat since 2021, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Kerry has not taken an official role in Biden’s re-election bid, but “plans to help tell the climate story in the context of the Biden campaign,” according to Axios.
The Democrat’s long political career, including a 28-year stint as a US senator from Massachusetts and a White House run against George W. Bush in 2004, has been marred by persistent accusations of climate hypocrisy.
John Kerry is leaving the Biden administration, his team said Saturday. AP
When Biden named Kerry to his 2021 presidential special envoy for climate, critics criticized him for regularly using his private jet, a Gulfstream Aerospace plane registered to his wife Teresa Heinz-Kerry’s company.
During the 2004 presidential election, Kerry’s campaign made 60 payments to his wife’s company, totaling $273,171, for the use of the plane — and in 2013, a state executive branch staff financial disclosure at the time showed he owned “over $1,000,001” in the company. assets through his wife, Fox News reported.
Kerry continued to use the carbon-blowing jet during his first 18 months as climate czar, logging 48 trips that lasted more than 60 hours and released an estimated 715,886 pounds — 325 metric tons — of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to flight records.
Kerry has come under fire for his lavish jet sets while preaching energy conservation for the masses – informing his staff of his impending departure after speaking with Biden on Wednesday. Reuters
Luxe corporate jets can emit up to 40 times more carbon per passenger than commercial planes, experts say.
His jet-setting jaunts to rub shoulders at star-studded climate confabs in Egypt, Dubai, Scotland, Japan, and the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland drew unrelenting jeers from Republicans.
“Gas is always greener when you burn fossil fuels in the name of saving the planet,” Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst told The Post in June, when she introduced a bill that would monitor greenhouse gas emissions by Kerry and other officials. the Biden administration.
Kerry has not taken an official role in Biden’s re-election bid, but “plans to help tell the climate story in the context of the Biden campaign,” according to Axios. Getty Images
“According to the actions of this Biden bureaucrat himself who emits greenhouse gases while gliding around the world, American-made fossil fuels are not the enemy,” Ernst said. “The double standard is clear, and the American people have had enough of this hot air.”
Kerry’s close relationship with China – especially his diplomatic partner, Xie Zhenhua – has also drawn attention, with critics repeatedly accusing him of downplaying Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang to win climate concessions.
As President Obama’s secretary of state, Kerry played a key role in negotiating the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement – a controversial climate agreement that was abandoned by Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, in 2017.
When Biden named Kerry a specially created US Presidential Special Envoy for Climate in 2021, critics slammed him for his frequent use of private jets. AP
In 2021, he refused to answer a reporter who asked if Kerry had pressed Chinese leaders about the alleged use of forced labor to build solar panels in Xinjiang.
“We’re honest about the differences … but that’s not my lane here,” Kerry said.
“That – my job is to be the climate guy, and stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”
During the 2004 presidential election, Kerry’s campaign made 60 payments to his wife’s company, totaling $273,171, for the use of aircraft and in 2013 financial disclosures showed he owned “over $1,000,001” in company assets. AP
In December, Kerry helped broker the UAE Consensus, an international agreement aimed at transitioning the world away from fossil fuels while channeling large sums of cash to poor countries for the “losses and damages” of climate change.
“There should be no more coal-fired power plants allowed anywhere in the world,” Kerry said last year at the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, claiming that they “kill people every day.”
The Post has contacted the White House and Kerry’s office.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
