U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will leave his post in the coming months to participate in President Joe Biden's election campaign, his office confirmed Saturday. Kerry, 80, a former Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and secretary of state in Barack Obama's administration, had informed the White House of his decision this week. So far, it has not been announced who his replacement will be.
No specific date has yet been set for the departure of Kerry, who is scheduled to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week and the Munich Security Conference in February. His departure is expected to occur sometime before April.
The envoy's decision comes a month after he helped broker a key agreement at COP 28, the U.N. climate change summit in Dubai last month, in which countries pledged to "move away" from fossil fuels, the main driver of global warming.
Whoever his replacement is, an uphill battle to get him confirmed in the Senate is anticipated. As an envoy appointed by the White House in 2021, Kerry did not have to undergo that procedure in the Upper House, where the Republican minority has blocked key government appointments for months, including that of Julie Su, Biden's proposal to take charge of the Department of Labor. But an amendment to the law in 2022 now includes this position among those that must receive approval from senators to become effective.
At the helm of U.S. climate change policy, Kerry has left a significant mark. The former secretary of state has led his country's respective delegations to three UN climate summits. As Obama's foreign policymaker, in 2015 he had played an important role in the signing of the Paris agreements against climate change, which set targets for the emission cuts of the signatory countries.
Donald Trump withdrew the United States from these agreements during his presidential term (2017-2021). Upon his arrival at the White House, Biden signed off on the return of the country, the world's second most polluting, to the global pact. As climate envoy, Kerry took on a particularly difficult mission: to convey to the world the message that Washington wanted to return to prominence in the fight against global warming.
During his time in office, the former secretary of state has also remained in tune with Xie Zhenhua, his counterpart from China, the other country primarily responsible for carbon emissions and with whom he negotiated such thorny issues as whether developing countries should also reduce their emissions. At times of crisis in the relationship between the two Governments, the two envoys maintained contacts. Kerry's visit to China in 2023, in the midst of a crisis between the two countries over the U.S. downing of a Chinese hot air balloon, represented one of the key steps in the process of normalizing ties between the two giants. Xie, 74, had also already announced his retirement for health reasons and will be replaced by Liu Zhenmin, a former vice foreign minister.
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