Washington – The Biden administration’s second climate diplomat is leaving his government post after a year, US climate envoy John Kerry said on Friday.
Jonathan Pershing is a veteran of decades of US government climate efforts, whose work notably helped negotiate the 2015 Paris Agreement under the Obama administration. Pershing had returned to government to help the Biden administration reinvigorate U.S. global climate efforts after President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris accord.
As soon as Joe Biden called Kerry about his role as climate envoy, “I called Jonathan in California to tell him we needed him on day one. I told him we needed to get the band back together,” Kerry said in a statement, calling it a “critical call for us.”
The New York Times first reported Pershing’s departure. He said he would return to manage the Hewlett Foundation’s climate programs.
The departure of the No. 2 climate envoy comes after a year of all-out global diplomacy by Kerry, Pershing and their team to push governments to commit to further and faster reductions in oil and gas emissions. coal that destroy the climate.
The Biden administration’s first year of diplomacy succeeded in bringing global attention to what governments were doing to help. Many countries, including the United States, increased their emissions reduction pledges at November’s United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
“After four years of disengagement and distrust, we needed not only the A team but also the A+ team to rebuild our credibility and our diplomacy,” Kerry said in the statement. He credited Pershing with making a “real difference”.
But Kerry and his team had a harder time designing big, game-changing breakthroughs. China in particular has refused US pleas to halt construction and operation of dirty-burning coal-fired power plants more quickly.
And after pledging to set an example for the world when it comes to cutting emissions, the Biden administration has so far failed to push its central climate legislation through Congress. U.S. emissions, including those from coal, surged in Biden’s first year as the economy recovered from the pandemic.
China is currently the world’s worst emitter of climate-destroying oil and coal emissions, while the United States is the worst over time.
