The former US Senator and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama highlighted the discrepancy between current actions and the outcome of COP28. He said: ‘In Dubai we got almost 200 nations in the hardest diplomacy of all to agree – where one nation can just walk out – to agree that we had to transition away from fossil fuels; “transition” being the key word. We had to do so to achieve net zero by 2050, according to the science, which is code for trying to hold on to 1.5 degrees. And finally, not unimportantly, we had agreed to accelerate in this decade. Well we’re not; emissions are up, certainly mostly in the developed world. We have 48 sub-Saharan African states that make up about 0.5% of all the emissions of the world, and 23 nations or so that equal more than 80% of all the emissions in the world. So, it could not be more clear to us as human beings where the action has to be.’

Kerry, who was in post when the US signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2014, and served as a Special Presidential Envoy for Climate from 2021–2024, observed that countries are not currently exhibiting the ‘right behaviour’.

‘This is a clash between the basics of human nature. Whether or not, when confronted with hard truth, we have the ability to summon the actions that are demanded by that particular situation. And I am convinced of this; it’s why I am now working in the private sector.’

‘The key now for all of us is implementation; make it happen. No government has enough money to do that; we know it’s in the trillions of dollars. But here’s what gives me hope, and I believe it’s going to make the difference. The private sector does have trillions of dollars.’

In conversation with Octopus CEO Greg Jackson, Kerry told the audience about his European childhood; his mother was born in Surrey, and grew up in pre-war Paris. Born 1943, he spent a period in post-war Berlin where his father worked for the US consulate.

Back across the pond, Kerry served in the Navy and in Vietnam, worked as a public prosecutor, and became a senator in 1985.

Jumping forward to his work after the Obama administration, he told the audience about his work negotiating with China over the past decade to establish more ambitious climate goals. What began as ‘President Xi has made his decision; we won’t do anything, we can’t change anything’, to greater engagement, culminating in face-to-face negotiations during the COVID pandemic. He recalls: ‘Having flown by special charter, the delegation landed, got out of the plane to be confronted by spotlights and 30 guys in moon suits who wouldn’t go near them and led them to separate rooms, meeting only at a 20-foot table where you couldn’t spread your germs. We fought and fought about this.’

He continues: ‘Today, China has manufactured and deployed more renewables than all of the rest of the world put together. That’s where China is now. The problem is not going to be China at this rate, the way it’s going; it’s going to be other countries that aren’t following – and mine is now among them.’

Kerry now co-chairs a fund (Galvanise Climate Solutions) which has invested in, among other companies, Octopus Energy, and aims to prove the returns of investing in green firms, because ‘ultimately the marketplace has made its decision’.  

‘One person, one president, no matter how they want to reach beyond the norms, they can’t undo what the marketplace is doing.’

Watch a video of John Kerry's remarks.