John Kerry – USA is not giving up on Paris climate deal

“This is bigger than one person, one president,” the US secretary of state said in Marrakech, before his last address to the UN climate summit being held there. “We have to figure out how we’re going to stop this.”

President Obama is walking a fine line before leaving office, between an imperative to staunch the threat that climate change poses to US and global interests, and the need to respect the results of last week’s US election.

In a speech that pulled few punches, Kerry made a detailed and often emotional plea to the incoming US president to listen to faith leaders, military chiefs, businessmen, activists and – above all – climate scientists, before abandoning future generations to the ravages of climate change.

Minutes before he spoke, the US released the first long-term climate strategy under the Paris agreement, offering a blueprint for reducing national emissions by 80% by 2050, measured against 2005 levels.

That presentation, like Kerry’s words, was given added urgency by the UN forecasting that 2016 will very likely be the hottest year on record, setting a new high for the third year running.

Kerry said: “This year will contribute to the hottest decade in human history, which was preceded by the second hottest decade, which was preceded by the third-hottest decade. At some point even the strongest climate sceptic has to acknowledge that something is happening.”

In a meeting across from the room that Kerry spoke in, business leaders added their weight to the calls for the Paris agreement to be protected……https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/16/john-kerry-we-will-fight-to-keep-us-in-the-paris-climate-deal