John Kerry, former United States senator and climate czar for the Biden administration, is known for making awkward statements.
He added to the list this week when claiming that people would “feel better” about Russia if the nation invested as much energy into fighting climate change as it puts into fighting Ukraine.
RNC Research recapped Kerry’s comments in a post on X:
“Biden’s climate envoy’ John Kerry says Russia must “make a greater effort to reduce emissions. Maybe that would open up the door for people to feel better about what Russia is choosing to do at this point in time!”
Biden "climate envoy" John Kerry says Russia must "make a greater effort to reduce emissions."
"Maybe that would open up the door for people to feel better about what Russia is choosing to do at this point in time!" pic.twitter.com/R0tdvkP9Kz
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 6, 2024
Breitbart reported that earlier this week, a Russian reporter asked Kerry if the strained relations between the United States and Russia negatively impacted the need for climate change cooperation.
The reporter asked: “In this regards, do you think that the Western sanctions are affecting global efforts to fight climate change and the shared commitments under the Paris Agreement?”
Kerry responded:
No, I don’t. Because I believe that Russia has the ability to be able to make enormous changes if it really wanted to. I mean, if Russia has the ability to wage a war illegally and invade another country, they ought to be able to find the effort to be responsible on the climate issue.
And unfortunately, because of the actions that Russia took in an unprovoked, illegal war against another nation, we have not been engaged in discussions with Russia, sadly. I say “sadly” because it’s a loss for the world not to be able to have Russia acting constructively on this issue.
But we need every country, including Russia – Russia’s one [of] the largest emitters in the world. If Russia wanted to show good faith, they could go out and announce what their reductions are going to be and make a greater effort to reduce emissions now.
Maybe that would open up the door for people to feel better about what Russia is choosing to do at this point in time.
Breitbart characterized Kerry’s statement as “a clumsily worded response.”
Notably, in February 2022, Kerry pleaded with Russian President Vladimir Putin to consider the impact on the climate when “dropping hot bombs on the frozen terrain of Ukraine.” Later, Kerry complained that Putin’s behavior was complicating efforts to fight climate change.”
Fox News noted Kerry offered a similarly awkward statement regarding climate change while discussing the war in Ukraine last July when he urged people to “think about all the greenhouse gas emissions from Russia’s intense bombing campaign.”
Kerry added, “Lots of parts of the world are exacerbating the problem right now, but when you have bombs going off, and you have damage to septic tanks or to power centers, etcetera, you have an enormous release of greenhouse gases, methane, all of the family of greenhouse gases, and the result is it’s adding to the problem.”
