John Kerry Calls Trump the Biggest Loser on Climate Action

By Grace Kim

COP31 opened in the Turkish resort city of Antalya on Monday without a U.S. delegation, unlike almost every other country at the annual UN climate talks.

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry used the summit to accuse Donald Trump of scrapping climate action and handing China the lead in clean energy. He called Trump the “biggest loser we’ve seen in a long time.”

What is Trump changing?

Kerry, a former climate envoy for Joe Biden’s administration, said Trump’s withdrawal from the international climate process and reversal of measures that reduced planet-heating emissions have weakened the U.S. position.

Trump previously called climate science a “hoax” and urged countries to drill for more oil and gas. His administration’s absence leaves the United States outside a process that almost every other country joined.

On Monday, Trump renewed his longstanding opposition to wind farms while discussing potential legislation that could make it easier to build new energy projects. “I will not approve wind turbines because wind turbines are a major loser,” he said.

Asked by the Guardian about Trump’s remarks, Kerry said: “[The] first thing they should do is hold up a really big mirror so he can look at a loser, because he’s the biggest loser we’ve seen in a long time on all of these issues.”

The result is a U.S. absence from a nearly universal negotiating process and a rollback of emissions measures and clean-energy market support Kerry says America needs to compete.

Why is China the central test?

Under Biden, the U.S. passed sweeping climate legislation that gave tax breaks for clean energy and electric-vehicle manufacturing. Kerry said the bid aimed to compete with China, which has dominated clean technology.

Republicans eliminated most of that support. Trump imposed tariffs on various goods and poured public money into propping up struggling coal-fired power plants.

Kerry said: “He’s missing the point.” He added: “He’s missing the competitiveness with China. He’s missing the marketplace for goods that could be produced in the United States. We could be the supply chain for some of these.”

The Guardian described coal as the dirtiest fossil fuel, responsible for much of the pollution driving dangerous planetary warming. Trump’s tariffs and coal support stand against the clean-energy manufacturing strategy Kerry favors.

Kerry, who ran as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, has repeatedly urged the U.S. and the rest of the world to follow China’s lead on green energy. He said:

“He declared he wanted to beat China, be number one in X, Y, or Z, and he walked away from the battlefield. He totally took America out of that sector. So honestly, if you want to be number one, you don’t do it by literally blackballing an entire sector of the economy.”

Kerry’s argument is straightforward: America cannot beat China on clean energy while retreating from the sector.

Can the world cut emissions fast enough?

The Guardian reported that rapid renewable-energy growth had helped prevent a significant amount of fossil-fuel power from coming online, with global emissions edging down slightly last year. The world needs far larger and deeper cuts to avoid catastrophic climate change.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres told countries gathering at COP31 that it was “long past time” to phase out fossil-fuel use. His warning followed years of slow negotiations over fossil fuels, the central cause of climate change.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in Antalya on Tuesday and dismissed the talks: “Cops have become greenwashed circuses,” she said. “That is the reality.”

Kerry acknowledged the ponderous progress. He said politicians should talk differently about the climate crisis to engage the public, even if the talks have moved slowly for years.

Renewable growth kept significant fossil-fuel capacity offline and global emissions slightly lower, but the required cuts remain far larger and deeper.

What did the U.S. midterms show?

Kerry said global warming did not rank as the central issue in the recent U.S. midterm elections. He said concern about rising energy costs overlapped with climate concerns and helped drive voters to the Democrats.

Kerry expects victorious Democratic candidates to keep climate high on the campaign agenda. “I think we will have a number of candidates who will have this high on the agenda,” he said. “And all of the analysis that I’ve seen, I mean real analysis, has said this was one of the issues that counted.”

The White House confirmed that the administration would send no one to COP31. A White House official dismissed the summit: “This summit rejects reality by failing to acknowledge that extremist climate policies are destroying countries around the world.”

With talks underway and no U.S. delegate in Antalya, the next test is whether the White House changes course before COP31 concludes; Kerry expects climate and energy costs to remain high on the Democratic agenda.