[US Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry]
I wish you could see the smile on my face, I’m delighted to […]
I’m really delighted to be here, back in Brussels and I’m delighted to be here with my friend, Frans Timmermans and to meet with the College of commissioners today.
President Biden has made it clear that this is one of the most important issues that his administration intends to deal with.
And he has made it an all of government effort.
So as I come here to renew conversations with our friends in Europe over our cooperation on climate, which was extraordinary as we let up to Paris
It will have to even be stronger now.
We face an extraordinary crisis, because the science is screaming at us. The evidence grows by the year. Last year again, hottest year in history and you go back and trace them all. Many other indicators.
So this is a crisis, the climate crisis, but it’s also a moment of the greatest opportunity that we’ve had since perhaps the industrial revolution. To build better. To renew ourselves and our economies, which is an extraordinary moment, economically, where there will be new products, new technologies, whether it’s carbon capture or battery storage or hydrogen fuel: run the list. Those are the solutions to the crisis that we face. And we have no better partners than our friends here in Europe and the EU. It is important for us to align ourselves now, which is what we will discuss today.
Because no one country can resolve this crisis. It will take every country. And it will be more than governments. It will take the civic society of our states, unities, our nations. And it will take the private sector, importantly.
There are trillions of dollars or euros or whatever the currency, that will be required. But every single economic analysis makes it clear.
It is more expensive for our citizens not to respond and to do what we need to do, than it is to do it.
So, common sense dictates: this is the moment.
Glasgow is the last best opportunity that we have, that best hope that the world will come together and build on Paris.
Paris does not, alone, get the job done.
If all of us did what’s in Paris. We still see a warming of maybe 3.7° or more. And we’re not doing all that we set out to do in Paris.
So this is the moment.
For countries, common sense, governments, people, to come together and get the job done. We can do it.
We have many of the technologies today and many, many countries are working companies are working very hard to develop the technologies we know we need.
This can be done.
But, the scientists tell us, this decade, 2020 to 2030, must be the decade of action and that’s why President Biden is hosting a summit in April to bring countries together to help raise the ambition and that is something we will have to do from now until we meet in Glasgow. So I thank Frans for his generous welcome, his invitation to come here and I look forward to working with him and many, many others over the course of the next 8 months, which are just absolutely essential for all of us. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Brussels | March 9, 2021