US climate envoy John Kerry will step down from office in the coming months to join President Joe Biden's campaign, his office confirmed on Saturday. Kerry, 80, a former Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and secretary of state in Barack Obama's administration, informed the White House of his decision this week. It has not yet been announced who his successor will be.
No specific date has yet been set for Kerry's departure, who plans to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week and the Munich Security Conference in February. His departure is expected to take place before April.
The envoy's decision comes a month after he helped secure a key agreement at COP 28, the UN climate summit in Dubai last month, in which countries pledged to “leave behind” fossil fuels, the main factor in global warming. .
Whoever his successor is, a tough fight for his confirmation in the Senate is expected. As a 2021 White House envoy, Kerry did not have to undergo that process in the upper House, where the Republican minority has blocked key administration appointments for months, including that of Julie Su, Biden's proposal to head the Labor Department. But with a change in the law in 2022, this position is now among those that require senators' approval to take effect.
As a pioneer of US climate policy, Kerry has left an important mark. The former foreign minister led his country's respective delegations to three UN climate summits. As head of Obama's foreign policy, he played an important role in the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, which set emissions reduction targets for the signatory countries.
During his term as president (2017-2021), Donald Trump withdrew the United States from these agreements. Upon his arrival at the White House, Biden signed the return of the country, the world's second most polluting country, to the global pact. As climate envoy, Kerry took on a particularly complicated mission: to convey to the world the message that Washington wanted to once again be a protagonist in the fight against global warming.
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During his time in office, the former foreign minister also cultivated harmony with Xie Zhenhua, his counterpart from China, the other country primarily responsible for carbon emissions, and with whom he negotiated such sensitive issues as whether developing countries should also reduce their emissions. During times of crisis in relations between the two governments, the two envoys maintained contact. Kerry's visit to China in 2023, amid the crisis between the two countries over the US downing of a Chinese hot air balloon, marked one of the most important steps in the process of normalizing relations between the two giants. The 74-year-old Xie has also already had his Announced resignation for health reasons and will be replaced by Liu Zhenmin, former vice foreign minister.
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