ENVIRO MENTAL CASE

Kerry: Climate cuts could allay Vlad slaughter

If Russia wanted to show good faith, they could go out and announce what their reductions are going to be and make a greater effort to reduce emissions. Maybe that would open up the door for people to feel better about what Russia is choosing to do at this point in time. — John Kerry (left)

President Biden’s outgoing climate czar, John Kerry, one of the most powerful and esteemed figures in Washington, made jaws drop this week when he suggested that the world might “feel better” about the ongoing bloodshed caused by Russia in Ukraine if Moscow cut its emissions.

“Russia is one of the largest emitters in the world. If Russia wanted to show good faith, they could go out and announce what their reductions are going to be and make a greater effort to reduce emissions,” Kerry, 80, said during a foreign press briefing in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, his penultimate day on the job before leaving to assist Biden’s reelection campaign and teach at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs.

“Maybe that would open up the door for people to feel better about what Russia is choosing to do at this point in time.”

Biden created the Cabinetlevel position of climate envoy for Kerry — a former secretary of state under Barack Obama and the 2004 Democratic nominee for president — in 2021, but critics heaped scorn on the ex-Massachusetts senator for traveling to meetings with foreign leaders and international climate junkets by private jet.

Less than a year into the job, the Gulfstream GIV-SP plane owned by Kerry’s wife reportedly took 48 trips and dispersed more than 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air, compared with the 4.6 metric tons emitted by typical passenger planes.

Kerry has also sidestepped criticism of taking meetings with authoritarian leaders on climate-related issues, refusing in a congressional hearing last July to call Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator.”

Global carbon dioxide emissions increased by 1% last year, driven largely by pollution from India and China.

Last year, on the anniversary of D-Day, Kerry made an astounding comparison between Allied forces’ fight against Nazi Germany and combating climate change in the 21st century. “They were fighting for a set of values I would say to you are just as important today as they were then,” he said. “They put their lives on the line to fight against fascism, tyranny and misinformation and the savage slaughter of innocent lives. “Make no mistake, just as that was a fight for the future as much as anything we have ever faced, what we are seeing now is the same.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mocked Kerry’s comments.

“At this point, the Biden admin is like a continuous SNL skit,” Cruz wrote on X, alongside a clip of Kerry’s remarks.

International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovsky joined in.

“I had to listen to this three times to make sure Kerry really said this, ” he wrote on X. “And he did. Embarrassing beyond words, and quite frankly, utterly offensive!”

Radio host Buck Sexton also chimed in, writing: “The insane gibberish of a climate fanatic.”

Other critics piled on the Ukraine flub, with one social media user calling Kerry a “raving lunatic” and a “climate clown.”

Kerry’s comments came after a Russian news agency reporter probed him about the US-Russia relationship as it related to his climate agenda.