John Kerry: rich countries must respond to developing world anger over climate

US climate envoy says there needs to be work on details of ‘loss and damage’ fund in 2023

People in developing countries are feeling increasingly angry and “victimised” by the climate crisis, the US climate envoy John Kerry has warned, and rich countries must respond urgently.

“I’ve been chronicling the increased frustration and anger of island states and vulnerable countries and small African nations and others around the world that feel victimised by the fact that they are a minuscule component of emissions,” he said. “And yet [they are] paying a very high price. Seventeen of the 20 most affected countries in the world, by the climate crisis, are in Africa, and yet 48 sub-Saharan countries total 0.55% of all emissions.”

The Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt in November was nearly derailed by a bitter row between rich and poor nations over “loss and damage”, the term for the most severe impacts of climate disaster, and the means of rescuing and rebuilding poor nations afflicted by them.

The US, the EU, the UK and other rich nations eventually agreed to a new fund for loss and damage, without saying how much money would be in the fund or where the finance would come from.

Kerry said the US was committed to helping the developing world with loss and damage, but that the details of the fund would need more work in 2023.

“How can you look somebody in the eye, with a straight face, and not accept the notion that there are damages, there are losses?” he asked. “We see them all around the world. You see them in heightened sea levels, we see them in fires, we see them in floods, in Pakistan and elsewhere. We see them in the higher intensity of storms.”

But he added: “How you manage [loss and damage] is still at issue: how do you approach this challenge of the financial arrangements. But it was important to acknowledge that they’re there and we have to work at this in good faith.”

Kerry was speaking to the Guardian in London in December. The White House faces severe problems in raising climate finance through Congress, with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives likely to prove unwilling to disburse funds. The likely difficulties were presaged in a finance bill passed just before Christmas, which contained less than $1bn in climate funds.

At Cop27, Kerry suggested international markets for carbon offsets and the private sector might provide additional sources of funding. However, those discussions are at an early stage, and likely to be fraught.

Next year’s Cop28 talks will be held in the United Arab Emirates, a major oil producer. Some have raised concerns that this could open up opportunities for oil lobbyists to slow progress. There were more than 630 fossil fuel lobbyists at Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, and pushback from oil-producing countries prevented stronger resolutions from being passed on the phase-down of fossil fuels and on reaffirming the global target of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Kerry rebuffed such concerns. “I think it’s ideal that UAE, which is an oil- and gas-producing nation, has had the courage to stand up and say, ‘We’re going to lead a Cop that’s going to address this challenge,’” he said.

“They’re on the cutting edge of a lot of [low-carbon technology], they’ve invested vast sums in renewable energy, they’re on the cutting edge of research into nuclear, green hydrogen, batteries,” he said. “I think it’s a really great statement that a country that has had great wealth produced as a result of the old energy economy is now looking to the new energy economy. And is going to be the site of an honest discussion about it.”

While discussions on climate finance are urgently needed, cutting emissions must also be a key focus, Kerry insisted. “We can’t walk away from [that],” he said. “You can’t take a holiday [from cutting emissions] because if you do, you’re simply contributing much greater levels of loss and damage and making it harder for the planet as a whole to meet this crisis.”

Kerry said he “regretted” that there “was not an adequate collective focus” on cutting emissions at Cop27. But he said that if countries met their commitments on emissions, the target of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C could still be met.

Some scientists and observers of the climate talks warned after Cop27 that the 1.5C target was being lost. Kerry rejected that view, but agreed that it would require far greater efforts.

“[The 1.5C target] is on life support – it’s still feasible, but only if we make better choices,” he said. Not all of the G20 group of the world’s biggest economies, which are also responsible for about 80% of global emissions, were coming up with the necessary targets and measures to meet them, he said. Limiting heating to 1.5C was, he said, “within the realm of possibility, but only if we get countries to step up across the board”.

US cooperation with China, the world’s biggest emitter, would be key to that, he added. “China presents a real challenge because of the levels of their overall emissions and their use of coal. We’ve got to find a way to work with China cooperatively.”

cover photo: Floods in Pakistan last August. ‘How can you look somebody in the eye, and not accept the notion that there are damages, there are losses?’ Kerry asked. Photograph: Fayaz Aziz/Reuters