John Kerry: The world is moving ahead on climate — with or without the US

“Don’t blame me.” That’s what John Kerry, the former U.S. secretary of state, said about President Donald Trump’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly — one that took shots at the U.N., called climate change “the greatest con job ever,” and scorned multilateralism from the global stage. “The speech speaks for itself, and you know what I’m referring to,” said Kerry, speaking from the stage of the Building Bridges conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday. “All in all, though, I left New York with a real sense of optimism.” That feeling wasn’t due to Trump — in fact, Kerry noted, the U.S. government just announced plans to revive the coal industry, clearing 13.1 million acres of federal land and injecting $625 million for coal plant upgrades to do so. Instead, Kerry told the sustainable finance conference that his optimism was because of the energy he felt throughout UNGA week, and the commitment he sensed from others to continue pushing climate goals forward. In large part, that’s because Kerry described today’s transition to renewable energy as “the biggest economic transformation since the industrial revolution,” nodding to the trillions of dollars invested in the sector in recent years. According to the International Energy Agency’s latest World Energy Investment report, capital flows to the energy sector were set to rise to $3.3 trillion in 2025 — with $2.2 trillion going toward renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emission fuels, and other technology to power the green transition. That’s twice as much as the $1.1 trillion going to oil, natural gas, and coal, the report found. “[People are] getting more serious about where we are, without thinking that we have to rely on the government or wait for it,” said Kerry, who also served ​​as the special presidential envoy for climate during the Biden administration. “Because this government right now, at least in the U.S., is not going to move in that direction.” Importantly, he added, there are also other countries willing to fill the gap. The same day Kerry spoke at Building Bridges, for example, the European Commission announced a new €545 million investment to expand the clean energy transition across Africa. Denmark, for another, recently announced that over 88% of its net electricity generation was sourced from renewables. And today, China’s investment in green energy has soared — though it’s still the world’s biggest polluter globally. As a result of its green investments, Chinese electric vehicle batteries now make up 60% of the world’s market; the country was responsible for 75% of global wind farm installations in 2023. That’s had a trickle-down effect: China now holds over 45% of global employment in the renewable sector, and has led to the export of lower-cost renewable technologies across the global south. While warning about the threat of a single supply chain, Kerry used the example to showcase how the world is moving ahead with or without the U.S — and how the country would miss out if it continues to step aside. There’s a “hell of a lot of money” to be made in the energy transition, Kerry said, adding that it was time “for serious people to think about serious ways” to finance the sector differently. “I and those of us pushing for this are not asking for sacrifice,” said Kerry. “The narrative of morality, powerful as it should be and is and was, brought us a certain distance here. Now, we need the power of investability. The power of showing people you can invest and have money come back to you.”