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“In other words, what happens if a certain person is elected?” he said, adding that observers needed to only look back to when Trump, as US president, pulled out of the Paris Agreement.
“Over 1000 [US] mayors and 37 governors all kept moving forward on the things that they pledged to do,” Kerry said. “So even when Donald Trump was president, 75 per cent of new electricity in the United States came from renewables.
“[Trump] may have pulled out of the Paris Agreement, but I’m telling you, the American people stayed in that agreement.
“We will get to a global low carbon, no carbon economy – we will get there. The only question is will we get there in time to avoid the worst consequences of this crisis?”
Kerry added that the global challenge would rely on a “torrent” of climate finance and private sector funding, conceding complicated issues were still ahead for negotiators.
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Since last week, COP28 has hosted leaders and representatives from almost 200 nations and more than 100,000 other attendees in Dubai, where negotiators are working to produce a final agreement for all nations to sign.
A draft of final text indicated that negotiators were considering calling for an orderly phase-out of fossil fuels.
Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who was set to arrive in the UAE late Wednesday night (local time) for the second week of the summit, told ABC radio the government would support “stronger language on that sort of thing (fossil fuels),” but he would not be drawn on specifics.
“Some countries like China and the African Union have already said they are not comfortable with that sort of language, so that makes the negotiations difficult,” he told the AM program before departing Australia.
“In my experience, you go into these negotiations with a degree of flexibility, but you also go in pushing for stronger and more action. That’s what I’ll be doing on Australia’s behalf, and that’s what I’ll be doing as chair of the Umbrella Group of negotiators.”
The Umbrella Group is a coalition formed following the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol at the 1992 UN climate summit. In addition to Australia, the group also includes Canada, Iceland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, Norway, Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom.
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