Incoming US climate envoy John Kerry to face China as the world’s biggest polluter
- With the curtain closing on the Trump administration, environmental advocates are hopeful for an about-face in US federal climate policy
- But the prospect of a return to a joint effort by the world’s top two polluters to combat the climate crisis has set off alarm bells among hawks in the US
As the Biden administration takes the reins in Washington, the stakes have never been higher for the US relationship with China and the rest of Asia. In the sixth part of a post-US-election series, Owen Churchill and Jane Cai explore how Biden’s pick for climate envoy, John Kerry, faces a balancing act between cooperating with China and rallying other countries to hold Beijing accountable.
When the White House last year blocked then-State Department analyst Rod Schoonover’s written testimony to lawmakers about the national security implications of climate change, it proved to be the last straw for the scientist.
Furious, he resigned – there was a “long history” of policymakers ignoring intelligence they considered inconvenient, said Schoonover, who worked in the department’s bureau of intelligence and research.
“But to actively suppress it, because it has scientific content that was somehow purportedly not congruent to their view of science, as if there are ‘both sides’ – if we hadn’t become inured to it, we would see that as the radical action that it is,” he said.
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Trump and Greta Thunberg clash over climate issues at World Economic Forum in Davos
But with the curtain closing on the Trump administration, Schoonover and other environmental advocates are hopeful for an about-face in US federal climate policy.