John Kerry Stepping Down as Climate Czar to Work on Biden 2024 Campaign

John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, has confirmed reports that he’s leaving his role as climate czar in order to work on President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign.

Mr. Kerry made the announcement during a Jan. 16 appearance at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, and again on Jan. 17 in an interview with Yahoo Finance at the annual meet-up of global elites.

“I am not retiring, folks,” Mr. Kerry said at the Davos forum. “I am shifting my efforts to where I think they can be best used in an election year in the United States.”

Asked whether he’s leaving the job is so he can help campaign to reelect President Biden, Mr. Kerry confirmed that he is and explained that he would be violating federal laws if he were to campaign for the president while remaining in his role as climate envoy.

“Well, as a federal employee, I live under something called the Hatch Act, where you’re not supposed to engage in politics—in elected politics, partisan politics,” Mr. Kerry said. “And so what I will really do is regain my own voice by not being a federal employee. And I will campaign for President Biden because I think the stakes are so high, not just in our country and for our country, but for the world.”

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Mr. Kerry said he would elaborate as to what is at stake in the upcoming election once he’s formally out of his role as climate czar and free of the constraints of the Hatch Act, which prohibits civil-service employees in the executive branch of the federal government from engaging in some types of political activity.

Climate Agenda

Asked what would be on his agenda for the next few months until he resigns from his role as climate czar, Mr. Kerry said it would be more of the same.

“Well, the same thing is on the agenda that’s been on the agenda from the beginning when President Biden created this role,” he said. “And that is that the world is behind in this effort to deal with the climate crisis.”

He said he would work intently on accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels and reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

“My job in these next weeks is to help in the transition, but to make certain that we are moving full speed and doing as much as we can to excite the business community to step up and help be leading this transition,” he said.

“To meet our goal of 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, we need to phase out unabated coal,” Mr. Kerry said in a Dec. 2 2023, statement. Although he didn’t provide a specific date for when the Biden administration plans to eliminate existing coal plants, other regulatory actions by the administration point to 2035 as the year of ending coal use.

‘Nuclear Global Warming’

President Trump continued criticizing the Biden administration’s climate policies: “Our country can be rich again. John Kerry has to be stopped. He’s destroying our country. This guy, I mean, think of it: He goes all over the world in a private jet, by the way. He goes all over the world talking to these people about getting rid of coal plants.”

The former president later said that a much greater threat to the world than global warming is the possibility of a nuclear war, given the major geopolitical tensions around Ukraine and Taiwan.

He said, “[The] only global warming we should be thinking about or worrying about because it could happen tomorrow is nuclear global warming, not global warming.”

The 54th annual WEF meeting, where Mr. Kerry spoke about leaving his role as climate envoy, continues until Jan. 19, with a roster that includes prominent individuals from more than 100 governments, major international organizations, business leaders, and activists.

Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.