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John Kerry: ‘Washington Continues to Achieve Climate Goals’ | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Carlos Barria, Reuters


Marrakesh- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Wednesday, before the audience of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh, that his country is on its way to achieve its climate goals and cannot abstain from carrying out its obligations one week after electing Donald Trump.

Kerry believes that market forces are already driving the switch from fossil fuels to renewable power sources.

“I can tell you with confidence that the United States is right now, today, on our way to meeting all of the international targets that we have set, and because of the market decisions that are being made, I do not believe that that can or will be reversed,” Kerry said amidst the audience’s applause.

“Emissions are being driven down because market-based efforts are taking hold.”

Kerry urged countries to treat the earth’s changing climate as an urgent threat, citing melting glaciers, stronger storms, and record-breaking droughts.

“While I can’t stand here and speculate about what policies our president-elect will pursue, I will tell you this:

In the time that I have spent in public life, one of the things I’ve learned is that some issues look a little bit different when you’re actually in office compared to when you’re on the campaign trail,” he said.

Trump has called climate change a hoax, and said he would rip up the Paris deal, halt any U.S. taxpayer funds for U.N. global warming programs, and revive the U.S. coal sector.

Kerry observed that he had been participating in the U.N. climate change negotiation process ever since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

“I was there as a reporter too.” He suggested that he would attend the next COP as plain old “Citizen Kerry.”

At the end of his talk Kerry said: “No one has the right to make decisions that affect billions of people based solely on ideology or without proper input.”