The United States must end “crazy” oil and gas subsidies to achieve its climate goals, but a stalled Congress is preventing President Joe Biden from taking action, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told POLITICO.
“The subsidies are crazy, and we have them still in the United States,” Kerry said in an interview with POLITICO’s Power Play podcast. “President Biden has said we’ve gotta get rid of these subsidies. But again … you have to legislate to do that and we’ve been pretty gridlocked in our country for a period of time.”
As the U.S. heads into a presidential election year, Kerry said he hopes people will put aside “party labels” and “come together around good, common-sense solutions” to fight climate change. The U.S. diplomat, who is currently in Dubai for the COP28 summit, is preparing to welcome the U.S. Republican congressional delegation, slated to arrive in the United Arab Emirates later this week.
Donald Trump, the American conservatives’ standard bearer and front-runner to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has been notoriously skeptical on climate issues, even pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal during his time in the White House.
“I really look forward to meeting with the congressional delegation,” Kerry told POLITICO. “They have legitimate points of view about some ways to try to come at this problem. Not everybody has to attack it the same way.”
Kerry also shrugged off COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber’s controversial remarks that there is “no science” behind demands for a fossil fuel phaseout. The comments, published by the Guardian, struck a chord with al-Jaber’s critics, who have long questioned whether the COP28 chief can credibly lead the climate talks given his other role as CEO of the UAE’s state-owned oil company, Adnoc.
Al-Jaber’s comments may require “clarification,” Kerry told POLITICO, but he made it clear he is not withdrawing his long-standing support for the COP28 chief.
“Look, he’s gotta decide how he wants to phrase it, but the bottom line is this COP needs to be committed to phasing out all unabated fossil fuel,” Kerry said. “That means we cannot allow the emissions to be going up for sure.”
“I think he was saying that the science doesn’t dictate the methodology that you have to use,” he added. “You have to choose between many different ways of doing it.”
As the COP28 host country, the UAE has also been under scrutiny for its role as a large oil producer and exporter, especially after leaked documents indicated the country planned to use the summit to push fossil fuel deals.
Kerry agreed the UAE must “cut [oil and gas production], and everybody needs to be reducing supply and demand.”
“We all have to be part of hitting this goal of keeping the earth’s temperature limit to 1.5 degrees,” he said.
