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(CNN) – President-elect Joe Biden on Monday named John Kerry as his special presidential envoy for climate, underscoring his commitment to addressing the global crisis and offering a symbolic rebuke to President Donald Trump’s lack of leadership on the issue.
Kerry, who was President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, will be a cabinet-level official in the Biden administration and will sit on the National Security Council.
“This is the first time that the NSC will include a dedicated climate change official, reflecting the president-elect’s commitment to addressing climate change as an urgent national security issue,” Biden’s transition team said in a statement.
The raising of the issue in Kerry’s appointment anticipates a shift in policy and focus from the current president’s repeated denial of the scientific reality of the crisis and the systematic rollback of environmental policies.
“It will be an honor to work with our allies and partners, along with the rising young leaders of the climate movement, to address the climate crisis with the seriousness and urgency it deserves,” Kerry wrote in a tweet.
The energy around the issue of the climate crisis has intensified in a short period of time. When Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, during his first presidential campaign in 2016, called climate change the number one national security crisis, he was ridiculed for not taking foreign policy seriously. Five years later, the White House will have a special climate envoy with a seat at meetings of the National Security Council.
Kerry has long worked on climate issues. As secretary of state, he played a key role in negotiating the landmark Paris climate agreement, which was adopted by nearly 200 countries in 2015 and aimed to address the negative impacts of climate change. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal, and Biden promised to meet with him on his first day in office.
In 2019, Kerry co-founded a bipartisan initiative of world leaders and celebrities to combat the climate crisis called World War Zero. In the wake of the Democratic primary, he was co-chair of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force focused on producing policy recommendations on climate, along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
The co-founder and CEO of a leading progressive climate group, Sunrise Movement, congratulated Kerry on his appointment and said the creation of the position was an “encouraging sign.” Varshini Prakash, who served alongside Kerry on the unity task force, described him as “committed to listening and listening to the voices of young people – even when we may not always agree – and making sure we have a seat at the table.”
But Prakash said the single role was “not enough” and that the Biden White House “must also include a national counterpart reporting directly to the president to lead an Office of Climate Mobilization.”
The president-elect is expected to have a White House climate director who works on internal affairs and is on an equal footing with Kerry, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN.
Kerry served alongside Biden in the Senate for decades. He was first elected to the Senate to represent Massachusetts in 1984 after serving as lieutenant governor of the state under Governor Michael Dukakis.
In 2004, Kerry won the Democratic presidential nomination before losing the general election to incumbent President George W. Bush. In 2009, when Biden became vice president, Kerry assumed the position of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was nominated to serve as secretary of state by Obama in 2012.
Kerry served in the Navy in Vietnam as a gunboat officer in the Mekong Delta and received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.
Biden has proposed an ambitious plan to spend $ 2 trillion over four years on clean energy projects and end carbon emissions from power plants by 2035. However, the president-elect’s legislative agenda on climate will largely depend on whether Democrats get control of the United States Senate. , which will be decided in two runoff elections in Georgia on January 5. But regardless of which party controls the Senate, Biden vowed on the first day to sign a series of executive climate orders, which will not require congressional approval.
This story was first published on CNN.com, “Biden prioritizes the climate crisis by appointing John Kerry special envoy.”
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