CNN
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John Kerry has a mission: To persuade the remainder of the world to embrace renewable power and slash their planet-warming emissions. However the US Local weather Envoy’s job isn’t getting any simpler in yr two.

With world temperatures and fossil gas emissions climbing to new highs, Russia’s struggle in Ukraine is roiling power markets and placing short-term local weather targets in danger. International locations – together with the US and UK – are planning to drill extra of their very own oil and fuel to fill the void of the Russian power they’ve banned.

In the meantime, China, the world’s largest greenhouse fuel emitter, seems to be doubling down on coal because it prioritizes power safety. Even with China producing huge quantities of renewables, the nation’s continued coal use might doom the objective of limiting world warming to 1.5 levels Celsius.

And Kerry faces troubles at residence too: it’s nonetheless unclear whether or not Congress will go President Joe Biden’s local weather and financial invoice, which comprises billions in clear power tax credit.

With out sturdy local weather laws from Congress, the nation’s local weather management and credibility will proceed to be referred to as into query.

“He’s been a really efficient envoy, making an attempt to push folks in the direction of elevated ambition,” John Podesta, the highest local weather adviser to the Obama administration, informed CNN of Kerry. “In mild of Putin’s assault on Ukraine, the diplomacy will get that a lot tougher.”

However Kerry’s message is straightforward: the local weather disaster can not take a backseat to short-term fossil gas development whereas the world figures out the power crunch.

“Clearly, the complete fuel image and gas image of Europe has modified in a single day,” Kerry informed CNN. “It’s not enjoyable, however we’ve received to get via it. [Climate change] shouldn’t be one thing that goes away. As a result of Putin invaded Ukraine doesn’t imply ‘okay, local weather is over, and we don’t have to fret about it.’”

It’s nonetheless too early to know for sure whether or not Russia’s struggle in Ukraine and the ensuing power pinch can be good or unhealthy for local weather in the long term. However it’s horrible within the short-term, as international locations rush backward to conventional fossil fuels to make up the gaps.

Kerry cautioned that any short-term enhance in home fossil gas manufacturing have to be simply that: short-term, and with an off ramp.

“This isn’t a free license to come back in and pollute like loopy,” Kerry mentioned. “It’s received to be a accountable effort to within the quick time period fill a spot, however with a transparent plan for the place you’re heading by way of lowering emissions.”

The most recent report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change mentioned the world has fewer than three years to peak emissions and quickly decarbonize. International locations must ditch fossil fuels as quick as potential by switching to cheaper renewables, and actively take away carbon from the air to have any hope of maintaining world temperatures in test. We’ve got plentiful low cost power with wind and photo voltaic; what’s missing is the political will to get there, scientists say.

Kerry’s job now could be to instill that political will.

“There’s a stunning saying: Diplomacy is the artwork of letting another person have your method,” his former prime deputy Jonathan Pershing informed CNN. “Kerry is excellent at it.”

There’s additionally a troublesome geopolitical map that might type out of the Russia-Ukraine battle, with two blocs of nations: one that’s transferring ahead with renewable power and the opposite that chooses to stay with fossil gas, Podesta informed CNN.

“You’ve received a world atmosphere that feels prefer it’s cracking into two camps,” Podesta mentioned, placing the US and Western Europe into one camp, and Russia, China and Saudi Arabia into the opposite. “It’s potential you actually have – in a method that we haven’t had for the reason that Nineties – an east bloc and a west bloc. If that occurs, what does that imply for local weather? Kerry’s intuition, my guess is, is to attempt to maintain the worldwide system collectively, however that is perhaps much more tough.”

Podesta mentioned he might see China simply turning into the chief of a bloc that’s “each strategic and financial.”

“The query is, do they need to be the chief of the previous economic system as Europe and the US try to create a brand new economic system?” he mentioned.

China made a cope with the US on the COP26 UN local weather summit final fall to scale back its emissions of methane – a potent planet-warming fuel. The implementation of that deal remains to be a key objective for the Biden administration. Kerry mentioned China is engaged on a particular and “formidable” plan detailing how they’ll decrease methane emissions – a plan that might additionally have an effect on the nation’s coal use, as a lot of China’s methane come from coal.

“We’ve by no means stopped speaking to China,” Kerry mentioned. “Clearly, in the event you can’t get China to do sufficient, we will’t get the place we need to go. So, it’s very, crucial to proceed to work with them.”

Kerry traveled to China in-person twice final yr forward of COP26 and informed CNN he has continued to have digital conferences with Chinese language local weather envoy Xie Zhenhua. These digital conferences have continued into 2022, and Kerry informed CNN he’s hoping to get a daily assembly schedule between the 2 international locations.

Pershing informed CNN that the connection between Kerry and China’s local weather envoy Xie Zhenhua stays one among paramount significance.

“They don’t agree on some very basic issues, however they respect one another sufficient to interact one another,” mentioned Pershing, who left Kerry’s workplace late final yr to return to the William and Flora Hewlett Basis because the director of its atmosphere program.

The in-person conferences mixed with common digital engagement gave the US and China a relationship that opened some doorways, Pershing mentioned.

“Did it shift the underlying US-China dynamics? Probably not,” he added. “However that wasn’t [Kerry’s] intent – his intent was to open the door far sufficient to have a profitable negotiation on a local weather agenda.”

Nonetheless, China stays a persistent problem. A slowdown of home financial development and nervousness about power safety has induced the nation to double down on coal to construct extra infrastructure and maintain the lights on.

“The nation suffered nationwide energy shortages final fall,” Li Shuo, a local weather analyst with Greenpeace in China, informed CNN. “This – coupled with the continuing disaster in Ukraine – creates a robust need for stability and self-sufficiency. Extra coal helps relax that nervousness.”

Shuo famous that China began approving new coal crops firstly of the yr and different pro-coal insurance policies may very well be anticipated to comply with later. However on the identical time, he and Pershing mentioned that China is investing in renewable power with unbelievable velocity. China leads the world in rising its renewables capability, accounting for 43% of world renewable capability development and including near 50 gigawatts of offshore wind in 2021 alone.

Pershing famous that the town of Shenzen, China, has extra electrical buses than the remainder of the world mixed.

“This isn’t a failure,” Pershing mentioned. “That is ‘can they go quicker?’” Pershing mentioned.

Shuo mentioned renewables assist increase China’s economic system very similar to coal crops do, and due to this fact will continue to grow quick within the nation.

“Our problem is whereas constructing new and clear power, tips on how to bid goodbye to the previous and soiled,” Shuo mentioned.

Removed from his diplomatic travels, one among Kerry’s greatest challenges this yr may very well be what occurs at residence.

Kerry informed CNN his group’s essential mission heading into COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, this yr can be getting different international locations to satisfy the targets they set in Glasgow. However the US targets stay unmet, too – Biden’s goal to slash greenhouse fuel emissions in half by 2030 is basically depending on a local weather invoice passing Congress.

With six months left earlier than the UN’s Egypt summit and the midterm elections, there’s a very restricted window for Democrats to go a invoice, and their swing vote belongs to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin – who killed Biden’s bigger invoice and its $555 billion in local weather and clear power funding final yr.

Spurred partially by the European power disaster, Manchin is again in discussions with the White Home over a smaller invoice for clear power measures. Kerry not too long ago had dinner with Manchin when the 2 had been in Paris for a world power convention and mentioned a local weather invoice passing the Senate this yr is a “actual risk.”

“I don’t need to speculate what occurs if we don’t,” Kerry informed CNN. “I’m going to rely on doing it, as a result of we’ve received to do it.”

With out legislative progress, US leverage going into COP27 might drop. And different international locations have been asking US local weather diplomats the place the home Congressional motion is.

“They do ask – and they need to ask,” Pershing mentioned, pointing to the “checkered historical past” and inconsistent US local weather coverage that has ebbed and flowed with the whims of every president.

Nonetheless, the truth that Kerry is remaining in his position longer than many anticipated is a win for worldwide local weather diplomacy, these near Biden’s envoy mentioned.

“Kerry’s additionally received standing,” Pershing mentioned. “It signifies that folks respect him, they offer him a listening to, they offer him the entrée to have the dialogue.”