All posts tagged: John Kerry

America’s false virus equivalence – The Atlantic

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[ad_1] This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. This month marks four years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. My colleague Katherine J. Wu recently published an article about what is driving the U.S. government to frame COVID-19 as being flu-like—and the problems with that approach. I called Katherine to discuss the false equivalence of the diseases, and how America missed out on a chance to normalize protections against respiratory illness. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic: Not the Flu Lora Kelley: To what extent is COVID-19 being treated like the flu right now? Katherine J. Wu: In a lot of ways, this comparison has been present on public, private, and political levels since the first days of the pandemic. In 2020, some well-intentioned people were saying that, at least in some ways, you could expect COVID to behave like a lot …

Biden Is Still the Democrats’ Best Bet for November

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[ad_1] Let’s start with the obvious. The concerns about Joe Biden are valid: He’s old. He talks slowly. He occasionally bumbles the basics in public appearances. Biden’s age is so concerning that many Biden supporters now believe he should step aside and let some other candidate become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. The New York Times journalist Ezra Klein made the best-available case for this view recently in a 4,000-word piece that garnered intense attention by arguing that Biden is no longer up to the task of campaign life. “He is not the campaigner he was, even five years ago,” Klein writes. “The way he moves, the energy in his voice. The Democrats denying decline are only fooling themselves.” In one sense Klein is correct. As the political strategist Mike Murphy said many moons ago, Biden’s age is like a gigantic pair of antlers he wears on his head, all day every day. Even when he does something exceptional—like visit a war zone in Ukraine, or whip inflation—the people applauding him are thinking, Can’t. Stop. …

John Podesta will take over for John Kerry as the U.S. special climate change envoy, AP source says

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[ad_1] John Podesta, senior advisor to the President for clean energy innovation, listens during a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty Images White House senior adviser John Podesta will replace John Kerry as U.S. special climate change envoy, a person familiar with the appointment said Wednesday. Kerry announced earlier this month that he would step down from the top climate job to work on President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Podesta would start when Kerry departs, the person said. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the details of an appointment that has not been publicly announced and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The Washington Post first reported the appointment. Podesta was a behind-the-scenes veteran on climate in past Democratic administrations and was brought back to the White House last year to put into place an ambitious U.S. climate program newly revived by $375 billion from Congress. He …

Kerry and Xie exit roles that defined generation of climate action

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[ad_1] WASHINGTON (AP) — The United Nations climate summit in Dubai was wrapping up last month when John Kerry went to a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua only to find a surprise waiting for him. Xie’s 8-year-old grandson had brought Kerry a card for his 80th birthday. The lanky American, who had signed the landmark Paris climate accord with his granddaughter on his knee almost a decade earlier, bent down to thank the boy and praise his grandfather, according to someone who described the private encounter on the condition of anonymity. Just how overheated a planet those two grandchildren half a world apart will inherit has hinged in part on the unusually warm bond between Kerry and Xie, whose relationship for the past decade and a half helped forge the globe’s stutter-step progress in curbing climate change. Xie, 74, retired in December, and Kerry recently announced that he’s stepping down soon. It was a partnership that defined one generation’s hopes of saving a future one. At a glance, the two men make an …

John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, to leave the Biden administration

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[ad_1] John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, attends day thirteen of the UNFCCC COP28 Climate Conference on December 13, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Fadel Dawod | Getty Images News | Getty Images John Kerry, the U.S. special envoy on climate, is stepping down from the Biden administration in the coming weeks, according to two people familiar with his plans. Kerry, a longtime senator and secretary of state, was tapped shortly after Joe Biden’s November 2020 election to take on the new role created specifically to fight climate change on behalf of the administration on the global stage. Kerry’s departure plans were first reported Saturday by Axios. Kerry was one of the leading drafters of the 2015 Paris climate accords and came into the role with significant experience abroad, as secretary of state during the Obama administration and from nearly three decades as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden’s decision to tap Kerry for the post was seen as one way the incoming president was making good on his …

US climate envoy Kerry stepping down to help Biden's 2024 election campaign

US climate envoy Kerry stepping down to help Biden’s 2024 election campaign

Published by Sam

[ad_1] US climate envoy John Kerry, a key player in the Biden administration’s push to tackle climate change, will step down to work on the president’s reelection bid, media reported Saturday. Issued on: 14/01/2024 – 07:19Modified: 14/01/2024 – 07:22 1 min The former secretary of state and senator has spent the last three years liaising with other countries to up commitments on climate change, including at the most recent COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai. Kerry, 80, intends to help Joe Biden’s campaign by publicizing the president’s work in combatting global warming, according to multiple US media outlets citing officials familiar with the situation. Kerry informed Biden of his intentions to leave on Wednesday, and his staff learned of the decision on Saturday, those officials said. Apart from leading the US delegation at three UN climate summits, Kerry worked effectively with China despite complicated diplomatic relations. Together, the countries are the world’s two largest polluters, accounting for 41 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. In a rare display of unity, the United States and China helped …

John Kerry to step down as US climate envoy 

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[ad_1] John Kerry is expected to step down as the U.S. special climate envoy, a position he served in for three years. Kerry is departing the Biden administration and plans to assist the president in his 2024 reelection bid, multiple outlets reported Saturday.   Kerry, who served as Biden’s top climate diplomat since 2021, informed the president about his decision during a Wednesday meeting. While not planning to amass a formal role within the campaign, Kerry expects to publicize the progress the administration made in fighting climate change.  As climate envoy, Kerry worked to cajole governments around the world to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. The former Secretary of State led the U.S. through three United Nations climate summits, where he reignited the country’s leadership on the world stage after Washington pulled out of the Paris climate agreement during former President Trump’s term.  Despite informing the administration about his departure, Kerry, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will still travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week and is scheduled to …

The best of Power Play 2023 – POLITICO

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[ad_1] As we enter a mammoth election year on either side of the Atlantic, Power Play looks back on the highlights from our interviews in 2023 to set the scene for the big geopolitical stories of 2024.  In this week’s bumper New Year edition, host Anne McElvoy takes a tour through the best of Power Play since the podcast launched last September, talking to some of the most influential figures in the United States, Europe and beyond.  We’ll hear from prime ministers, business leaders, diplomats and generals about major conflicts, fraught elections and tussles over how to address climate change. Guests include John Kerry, Rishi Sunak, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Ron Prosor, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Mark Carney, Mathias Döpfner, David Petraeus and Keir Starmer. [ad_2] Source link

Why Does the GOP Block Ukraine Aid? For Trump.

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[ad_1] The White House and Senate continue to work frantically toward a deal to supply Ukraine before Congress recesses for Christmas. Supposedly, all leaders of Congress are united in their commitment to Ukraine—so the new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, insists. Yet somehow this allegedly united commitment is not translating into action. Why not? The notional answer is that Republicans must have a border-security deal as the price for Ukraine aid. But who on earth sets a price that could stymie something they affirmatively want to do? Republicans have not conditioned their support for Social Security on getting a border deal. They would never say that tax cuts must wait until after the border is secure. Only Ukraine is treated as something to be bartered, as if at a county fair. How did that happen? Ukraine’s expendability to congressional Republicans originates in the sinister special relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Pre-Trump, Republicans expressed much more hawkish views on Russia than Democrats did. Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea in spring 2014. …

​​A Radical Idea to Break the Logic of Oil Drilling

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[ad_1] In the climate-change era, everyone who has oil wants to be the last one to sell it. Oil-producing countries still plan to increase production in the near term, and very few economic incentives exist to press them in any other direction. As long as someone else still has oil, they’ll sell it to your customer in your stead. Oil-industry insiders have said this point-blank throughout this year’s United Nations climate talks in Dubai, which are scheduled to end tomorrow. The economic disincentives to phasing out fossil fuels have been the “elephant in the room,” according to Susana Muhamad, the environment minister of Colombia’s first-ever leftist government, who has emerged as a vocal leader in the meeting’s plenary rooms. Some of the countries most dependent on income from oil and gas are also among the ones most indebted to foreign banks, and so they keep drilling to stay current with payments. Countries such as Ecuador are exploiting their reserves—even in protected rainforest ecosystems—to service their painfully high debt. (Ecuadorians voted this August to block drilling …