(Washington) Departing US climate envoy John Kerry called on Friday for the United States to find significant new methods of financing the fight against global warming.
The former head of American diplomacy under Barack Obama warned that “a huge disappointment” would follow if historic promises to abandon fossil fuels were not kept.
John Kerry, who will soon leave his post as envoy, described the agreement reached in December in Dubai at COP28 as historic, for his call to turn away from fossil fuels, largely responsible for global warming.
But he also warned that this agreement should not be “reduced to simple words on a piece of paper”.
Inaction would encourage “cynicism and self-denial” and cause “enormous disappointment across the world,” he told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
The former Democratic senator and American presidential candidate in 2004 affirmed that he would concentrate, outside government spheres, on the mobilization of private financing, as a complement to public funds for the fight against global warming.
According to the diplomat, the United States should consider a system of financial guarantees for investors, which would cover risks in the event of failure of environmental projects.
It’s time to make room for creativity. We have invented new financial instruments in the past when we needed them, and I believe we need them today.
John Kerry, US climate envoy
The former secretary of state discussed his work as an envoy with Indonesia and Vietnam on partnerships called JETP, which serve as financing intermediaries between a small group of wealthy countries and an emerging economy, and aimed at reducing dependence on hydrocarbons or taking other measures to combat global warming.
But the world “doesn’t have time” for such “very personalized” agreements, John Kerry said.
“We need help to deploy larger sums with more confidence that the deal is profitable and that we have sufficiently de-risked it,” he added.
A recent study by the NGO Climate Policy Initiative highlighted that according to some assessments, credit guarantees could mobilize 6 to 25 times more financing than traditional loans – with emerging countries in particular seeking to reduce uncertainties.