John Kerry calls climate change a ‘bipartisan’ issue, urges action
Climate change is a fact, not a partisan issue, and it is time that it became an election issue for voters, former United States Secretary of State John Kerry says.
“I know the arguments. I know the procrastination. I know the lies and I know the dangers of climate change, and so do you,” Kerry told more than 1,000 attendees on Thursday.
Kerry, a Democrat and former secretary of the Obama administration, was the keynote speaker at the conference, “Climate Forward: Navigating the Politics of Climate Change” hosted by USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science’s Center for the Political Future and USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, along with the Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy at the USC Price School of Public Policy.
In 2015, Kerry worked with world leaders to craft and later sign the United Nations’ Paris climate agreement. The accord was aspirational, aiming to prevent average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels through various efforts that would reduce greenhouse gases.
But President Donald Trump, after taking office in 2016, announced that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the agreement. Notwithstanding, several states and even cities have signed resolutions that they would remain dedicated to meeting the carbon-reduction goals of the agreement.
“We need to get angry. We need to make climate change a voting issue,” Kerry urged the crowd.
Kerry noted that wildfires, floods, melting glaciers and repeated, powerful hurricanes and their storm surges, are undeniable evidence that global warming is worsening and destroying communities.
“People are dying today and more people will die because of the effects of climate change,” Kerry warned. “We are literally walking like lemmings off a cliff.”
Following Kerry’s speech, a host of experts, business leaders and politicians from both sides of the aisle discussed the policy failures and political hurdles that must be overcome to address climate change.