President-elect Joe Biden
Joe BidenBiden to nominate Linda Thomas-Greenfield for UN ambassador: reports Scranton dedicates ‘Joe Biden Way’ to honor president-elect Kasich: Republicans ‘either in complete lockstep’ or ‘afraid’ of Trump MORE on Monday named former Secretary of State John Kerry
John Forbes KerryMemo to Joe: It’s not 2015 anymore Biden campaign manager says he’s ‘going to make good’ on ‘incredibly progressive’ agenda Markey wins reelection in Massachusetts MORE as special envoy to lead his administration’s efforts to fight climate change.
Kerry will be the “climate czar” for the incoming administration, coordinating programs that are expected to stretch across multiple agencies while leading efforts at a White House that may need to look for avenues beyond Congress to advance climate priorities.
“America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is. I’m proud to partner with the president-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate movement to take on this crisis as the President’s Climate Envoy,” Kerry wrote on Twitter.
Kerry’s diplomatic background will be an asset for Biden, who has pledged to rejoin the Paris climate accord on Day One of his presidency and who wants to take a leadership role on an issue that has been largely ignored by the Trump administration over the last four years.
“Secretary Kerry elevated environmental challenges as diplomatic priorities, from oceans to hydrofluorocarbons. He was a key architect of the Paris Climate Accord, and signed the historic agreement to reduce carbon emissions with his granddaughter on his lap,” the Biden transition team said in a release announcing the position.
Shortly after the election, Biden cited “the battle to save the climate” among his top five priorities, calling for the nation to “marshal the forces of science” along with decency, hope and fairness.
The special envoy position would have Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and former senator from Massachusetts, playing a key role in implementing Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan, which calls for reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and requires a massive investment in clean energy, weatherization and efforts to green the transportation sector.
The cross-cutting nature of the plan would call on action from the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy along with related action from the departments of Commerce and Labor.
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