Very good evening. By any measure, this is the year of the climate election. 4 billion people, that's roughly half the world's population, will vote on green policies that will impact not only them and their families, but generations to come. The science is not on the ballot. That was settled a long time ago. What is in question is what the leading parties around the world intend to do about the crisis, specifically, what is their plan to phase out oil, gas, and coal. Nowhere is that question more important than in the United States, the largest emitter of climate pollution in history and the second largest annual emitter behind China. The man who's been steering US policy on climate is John Kerry, who will step down in the coming months. So a It's time then to reflect on what has been achieved and just what is at stake in the upcoming November election.

When I took the job, we were heading towards 3.7 to 4 degrees of warming on the planet. Now, Now we're heading towards about 2.5. We have succeeded, I think, globally in raising ambition of countries around the world. This most recent meeting in Dubai for the first time ever. We have the 195 countries that have said we have to transition away from fossil fuels. We have to accelerate in this decade. We have to do it in conjunction with a net zero 2050 goal in in terms of emissions, and we have to do it according to the science. Those are very strong imperatives, each of those, and it advances us well beyond Paris. Now, obviously, that's just words on a piece of paper. If We don't actually do this around the world. That's the mission now. It's to implement the tripling of renewables deployment by 2030, the doubling of energy efficiency, the tripling of nuclear deployment by 2030. These are real goals. They will really make a difference. The IEA has told us, the International Energy Agency has said, If you all, you countries, your governments, do everything that you have promised to do in Glasgow, in Sharm El Sheik, and now in Dubai, we could be at 1.5 degrees.

It's a reality check time in every respect for every government in the world, every business in the world.

It's incumbent on the two biggest superpowers to go the same pace and faster. You had a very close relationship with your Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Is it a coincidence that you both stepped down at the same time?

Yes.

It is. But I got the feeling being at the COP summit that it was that relationship.

We talked about it. No, he told me he was planning to leave, if I was planning to leave. It was something we'd agreed upon loosely. But the reason I decided it was time to transition, I'm not leaving the issue. I will stay and remain engaged as a citizen, and because it's urgent. I will continue to push the private sector and be involved with the private sector. Why? Because that's where the fight is now. That's where the trillions of dollars are. We all know that to affect this transition in time, to avoid the worst damages of the crisis, we must do this urgently It will cost somewhere between two and a half to five trillion dollars a year for the next 20 years. We don't have that in any government. No government in the world has that money. The private sector does, easily has that money. The values that you have around the world, it's multiple trillions.

We're seeing that through the Inflation Reduction Act, which is without doubt the most ambitious investment in combating climate change anywhere in the world right now. And yet the United States is still the largest producer in the world. Correct. How can it lead on climate when you're at record levels of production in oil and gas?

Because gas right now provides a transition away from coal and away from oil. That only lasts for a certain period of time. Around 2030, gas is going to begin to be measured far more significantly for the reduction of its emissions. It's not going to get a freebie. It's not that gas is here, we think, automatically for the long run, unless you are reducing the emissions. But coal and oil, I think most countries, most people are moving away from that in very rapid basis.

Except the Asian countries, and Republicans in your country would say, Look, there's 500 gigawatts of coal-fired power about to come online, unabated. Why would we start scaling down oil and gas? We would lose our competitive advantage.

No, the The entire world needs to do this and people have to lead. I mean, if everybody sits there and says,, you're all waiting for the other guy to move, we don't get there. If we don't have China cooperating with us and we're not cooperating with China, we don't get there. If we don't have Russia, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, a whole group of larger economies in the world, if they're not reducing emissions, we don't get there. Why on that basis then? Everybody's got to come to the table.

Why on that basis then in Dubai, did you not commit the United States unilaterally to a statement that you would phase out oil and gas rather than phase down?

Look at what President Biden just did. He just said, We're not going to approve the exploration of new LNG right now. We're going to pause because of what happened in Dubai and see where we're going. I think that, look, you can't just stop it tomorrow. I mean, people have to get to work. People have Kids go to school. You have emergency vehicles. You have all the vehicles of the world and transportation needs around the world and power needs around the world. You can't just turn it off. What people want to see is the legitimacy of the transition. That's what it's called. Transition away from fossil fuel, transition to the new clean economy. We've set goals for 2030, not goals for 2025 necessarily, although you have to set goals en route to get to 2030. What we have to have everybody understand is that if you do not meet the 2030 goals we've set, there is no net zero by 2050.

Well, on that basis, what would a Trump presidency mean for climate action?

I have no idea at this point because we don't know what- The blueprint, we're told, would be more extreme than it was in his first term.

He thinks climate science is a scam. It's drill, baby, drill. He'd be in power until 2029.

Well, here's what will to happen. If that were to happen, and I don't believe it will happen, but if that were to happen. When President Trump was President, last time, during his term, 75% of the new electricity that came online in the United States came from renewables. Why? Because 37 governors in the United States, 37 states, Republican and Democrat alike, live under renewable portfolio laws. They have to be moving towards renewables, and they did. So I believe that the economy of the world, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, they've decided they're going to produce electric vehicles. They've spent billions of dollars to retool their plants. If a president or Prime Minister or a monarch somewhere in the world stood up and said, We're not going to do this. We're going the other way. Guess what? They're doing it alone because the marketplace writ large has decided this is happening. We're going to move in this direction. Just because someone was elected, Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors or Ford Motor Company, et cetera, they're not going to stop suddenly and say, Oh, let's go back and make internal combustion engine cars. That's not going to It's going to happen.

Globally, the largest corporations in the world have joined something called the First Movers Coalition. You have Apple, you have Microsoft, Salesforce, FedEx, Boeing. I just mentioned Ford, General Motors. They've all agreed they are buying green products now, even though it may be a little bit more expensive, in order to send the marketplace an even greater demand signal so that you're beginning to change people's habits and attitudes. I believe, honestly, I think this revolution to a clean energy economy is going to happen. We will become globally a low-carbon, no-carbon global economy. The only issue The issue is, will we do this in time to avoid the worst consequences of the crisis? That's not at all certain.

I take your point on the direction private enterprises is traveling, but it requires commitment from governments as well, particularly in relation to electric cars. How well do you think the British government is sticking to its commitments? Can you preach net zero and at the same time invest in new oil and gas fields?

I think the meaning of the Dubai decision, the Dubai consensus, that 195 countries signed on to say, We must transition off of fossil fuels. President Biden just made a decision to say he was not going to approve additional LNG development right at this moment. I think every country in the world has to be serious about what they signed up to.

What will you say in your meetings today then to the government?

Well, I'll have a discussion about what the plan is. How are they going to meet this goal? Is it real? Do they intend to play.

But the very fact that you say, Is it real? After all the commitments that Boris Johnson made at COP 26 in Glasgow, you suggest you think they're walking it back.

No, what I'm saying is everybody is moving too slowly, including ourselves. We are not moving fast enough with the sense of urgency necessary with a full commitment to this. I mean, look at what you just said. Some people are saying, We're not going to do this if they don't do it. Are you kidding me? I mean, what part of the science, which is pretty basic. The mathematics and physics of pollution going up into the atmosphere and blanketing the Earth and containing heat is now more than obvious. January and February of this year were the hottest in human history. Last year was the hottest year in human history. In the Arctic, it was 70 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. In the Antarctica, it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. So what do people not understand? This is happening, and it's only going to get worse It's only going to cost more money. On the other side of the ledger, you have extraordinary job growth potential. You have healthier people. We have seven million people who die every year right now.

As we've seen in the United States, when you look at the Inflation Reduction Act and what it's generated, cheaper lithium batteries, cheaper wind power, more battery plants. On that basis, when you're saying spend the money now, why, if you were labor, would you step off a commitment to £28 billion? A green commitment that seemed to be popular among young people. They walked that back. Is that a smart move?

Look, I can't tell you what the whole plan is with respect to that. I am told by people I've talked to that people plan to live by their goal. Whether they're changing the pace or rate, I don't know the answer to that question. I just know this, that globally, we are not treating this with the seriousness of purpose and commitment that's necessary to get where we need to go. The developed world, UK, Europe, US, Japan, Canada, Korea, other countries, Australia, they are moving. They really are moving. Not quite fast enough yet. But they're moving. But there are some people who aren't moving. That's the problem.

Well, there's a reason for that because there's something of a green lash right now against climate policy. I mean, on the right, in the UK and across the EU at the moment, climate's being used as a wedge Look at the farmers. Look at the farmers, for instance.

I completely understand.

How do you stick to these pledges that you're making, these commitments that are being made at COP summits when contemporary politics is trapped in the short term?

Well, I think globally right now, there's still a fever burning with respect to populism and exploitation. I think, tragically, there are too many leaders, so-called leaders, who aren't leading, who are exploiting that root a lot of people have about, Well, if I want to move this, there's just a restraint. Unfortunately, we have bad politics, frankly, that's exploiting it. For instance, in our country, wokeism, and ESG is being used as an excuse in boardrooms. We say, Oh, we don't do that. We actually have the highest legal authorities in states, the attorney general, is bringing suits or threatening to bring suits against certain companies if they actually invest intelligently in green products or in the transition. This is insanity. It actually is a form of insanity. It's so short-sight. It is entirely tied to either money, greed, or the politics at the moment in trying to get elected based on this counterfeeling. But on the farmers, for instance, we have We have to work with those folks. We have to show the farmers ways in which you actually could help them to be able to transition and do better. There are farmers in the Midwest of our country who now have wind turbines on their farms.

They've got additional income.

As long as you can get a price for what you grow, that's the issue.

You can and you have to. Maybe that's the place where you put some subsidies, not subsidizing the oil and gas industry. We have about two and a half trillion dollars of subsidy that went to problem last rather than to the solution.

Talking about subsidy, the British government is going to put subsidy into a biomass carbon capture and storage plant. It's at Drax. It's our biggest power plant. It burns 27 million trees a year, nearly all of it imported from your country. The cost of capturing 8 million tons of the 12 million tons of the carbon that it emits will add more than a billion pounds a year to taxpayers's bills. Surely there are cleaner ways to invest in that.

There are.

You're an advocate of carbon capture.

I am an advocate of carbon capture because the scientists are telling us we cannot get to net zero 2050 if we don't have some carbon capture.

But it's being used by the fossil fuel companies as a get-out.

It can be. It's not by everybody. You have the CEO of Occidental, is completely committed to direct air carbon capture. They're doing it, and they're not putting it back into the atmosphere somewhere. People are now doing research about whether or not there are ways to take that carbon and then create it as some staple or part of new fuel. There's a lot of research taking place now. Some of it's out there, some of it's on a very real track. But I think most people who are involved in this issue believe that that's the way we're ultimately going to make the difference. Fusion is now making enormous leaps forward. We could have demonstration projects of Fusion somewhere in the next three, four, five years. We have one in Massachusetts, my home state. Mit has been involved in this for a long time. Fusion is just a game changer if that breakthrough happens. Green hydrogen, where price is coming down, we're getting closer. Electrolyzers are becoming five times more efficient than they were and producing more. We're moving in the right direction. Again, we have to bring it to scale much faster and much bigger. But we can't do this without China also doing it, without Asia doing it.

When you mention the 500 gigawatts, you're right. It's slated to come on. But guess what? China is also the largest manufacturer and deployer of renewables in the world. They deploy more renewables than all the rest of the world put together. If you look at where they are now, it may well be that they don't have to bring all those coal-fired power plants online. That is not the reality option with a lot of other countries where they don't have the other options because they're not deploying the renewables. Look, this is doable. It is a job creator. It will make life healthier for people because we're not putting pollution into the atmosphere. It'll make countries safer because they can produce their own energy, not have the threat of interruptions in the Gulf, Persian Gulf, or having to send your young people off to fight and die somewhere because it's going to support your energy source. The world will be safer, cleaner, healthier without any question, and there'll be a better economy with many more jobs created in these new sectors. This is the largest economic transformation that we're looking at in the history of humankind since the Industrial Revolution.

There will be enormous numbers of jobs created in this. There already are. In America last year, we had 3.8, 3.9% growth in clean energy jobs. The growth in the regular energy sector was only about 3%. We now have $1.8 trillion of venture capital in clean energy. Last year, the investment in old energy was about a trillion dollars. First time ever that clean energy is now beating fossil fuel. I think the trend has started. The issue is, will we move fast enough to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis?