John Kerry, the outgoing climate chief has insisted that the US continues to be a force for good in tackling the climate crisis, despite its soaring fossil fuel production.
Kerry acknowledged, however, that strong safeguards were needed to dismantle oil and gas infrastructure before the switch to renewables could become permanent, as he prepared to leave his post as special presidential envoy.
“I don’t agree that we are a force for ill,” he told the Guardian in an interview at the US embassy in London to mark his departure from government. “We are living up to our obligations to transition … we are in transition, and as our renewables come online they [fossil fuels] are going out at a very rapid rate.”
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The US, which is said to be the world’s largest economy, is also the largest oil and gas producer, as fracking and exploration have burgeoned in response to rising fossil fuel prices. The US president, Joe Biden, called a pause on export permits in January, but experts say this will not be enough to halt the rapid expansion that the bonanza has engendered.
Kerry said that gas producers must be subject to strict rules but that high production was needed in the near term to make the shift globally from coal to a low-carbon economy. Meanwhile, the US could slash its greenhouse gas emissions and lead the world on clean technology, he added.
“Yes, we’re the largest [oil and gas] producer in the world,” he said. “But the gas transition, getting gas to replace oil and coal, has been a critical reducer of emissions. Now can it finish the job and get us to net zero? Not unless you’re capturing all the emissions.”
According to him, as a result of the rapid construction of renewable energy capacity, driven by the Inflation Reduction Act – “the most forward-leading, most comprehensive piece of climate legislation anywhere in the world.
“The US was on track to meet its goal of more than halving emissions by 2030, compared with 2005 levels,”he said. “The US is not blindly going out and doing two things at the same time that are in opposition [by pursuing oil and gas and climate goals],”.
He further noted that Oil and gas production had been bolstered in response to the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Don’t measure us by what’s happened in the last year, in terms of the continued gas thing, because the gas piece is a reaction to Ukraine, to what Russia did by cutting off power and the lack of gas availability to Europe,” he said. “We’ve been able to sustain economies, even as those economies are buying into the climate transition.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
