John Kerry on the Battle Against Climate Change

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

With the world overheating, glaciers melting, and landscapes in flames, it’s difficult to think of a harder or more important job than John Kerry’s. The former senator and Secretary of State is now the special Presidential envoy for climate, a Cabinet-level post created by President Biden. Kerry talks with David Remnick about reasserting the United States’ fitness to lead on global climate action in the wake of Trump Administration policies, and about how to get allies and adversaries to engage in the battle together. He is heading to Glasgow for talks that aim to hold the warming level to 1.5 degrees Celsius. “Imagine what happens at 1.5, if you already see what’s happening at 1.2,” Kerry exclaims. “Is that what we want? You would think not!” Plus, an evangelical historian who is the wife of a pastor breaks from her church’s doctrine, arguing that Biblical readings of female submission are mistakes. She has felt the personal consequences of taking this stance.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.0	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Some years back during the Obama administration,
0:16.0	I spent a lot of time interviewing Secretary of State John Kerry for a profile that we published at the end of
0:21.7	2015. He was trying to talk down tensions between Israel and the Palestinians and to broker a piece
0:28.7	in Syria. Carrie seemed to relish jobs that others might think absolutely impossible. He is considered
0:36.2	relentless, I wrote in 2015, sometimes to a fault.
0:40.2	There's no concealing his eagerness to make a deal. To a critic, his style is reminiscent of the
0:46.1	customer who sternly tells the salesman, I'm not leaving here until you sell me a car.
0:52.9	But if peace in the Middle East certainly alluded Kerry,
0:56.0	his current project seems a great deal harder still.
0:59.6	Carrie is now serving as the special envoy for climate,
1:02.6	a cabinet-level post created by President Biden.
1:06.0	Carrie needs to reverse our standing in the world on climate policy
1:09.3	following four years of Trump's denialism.
1:12.5	And the clock is ticking even louder as the effects of climate change become brutally apparent
1:17.6	to us all over the world. I spoke with John Kerry last week. You were just in Europe to drum
1:24.8	up support for climate action in advance of talks in October in Glasgow,
1:29.9	which are essential.
1:30.9	You've said that these are the last chance to keep temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
1:38.4	What is your sense of the state of the world on this, the of the sense of urgency because you know we're
1:46.1	constantly getting warnings this is the last chance this is the last chance and here
1:50.4	we are in a summer of what seems to be apocalyptic conditions already well they are
	...

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