Update | Kerry urges global warming activists to march in streets in battle against climate change in visit to Antarctica
Kerry addresses hundreds of scientists and staff at McMurdo Station urging a movement and increasing engagement on issue of climate change
US Secretary of State John Kerry didn’t comment on President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory on Friday while visiting Antarctica, but did say that citizens who care about limiting emissions might have to march in the streets to push for more aggressive action.
Kerry became the highest-ranking American official to visit Antarctica when he landed for a two-day trip. He’s been hearing from scientists about the impact of climate change on the frozen continent.
Trump has called climate change a hoax and said he would “cancel” US involvement in the landmark Paris Agreement on global warming.
“We need to get more of a movement going,” Kerry said when addressing several hundred scientists and staff at an evening event at McMurdo Station, the large base which is the hub for US operations. “We need to get more people to engage.”
Kerry said there was a risk that much of Antarctica’s ice will eventually flow into the ocean, raising sea levels worldwide.
Despite the Paris agreement to cut the fossil-fuel emissions causing the planet to warm, “we haven’t won the battle yet,” Kerry said to the audience that included many young people involved in climate research.