John Kerry – Shame on us for failing to act on climate  – A greener life, a greener world

By Anders Lorenzen

John Kerry, the former US Secretary of State and Special Envoy on Climate Change, an army veteran and veteran of US politics now aged 80, took the stage in London today as the keynote speaker at the 2025 Soft Power Index.

Kerry took the stage the day after another destabilising move by the Trump Administration in which the US made moves to closer alignment with Russia than the EU and the rest of the Western world.

Hours earlier, David Haigh, the CEO of Brand Finance – the organisation that hosts the summit and compiles the index, unveiled the 2025 scoring and highlighted that while the US is still ranked in 1st place, this is a position that has been built up over time but can be eroded much faster, doubting that the world’s largest economy will be able to retain its position when they release their index in 2026.

The blurring lines between fact and fiction

Kerry, who unsuccessfully ran for US President in 2004, expressed concerns about the blurring lines between fact and fiction. He explained that it is becoming more challenging to filter out what is true and false, with the standard of the referring becoming weaker. According to the former Secretary of State, this weakening can even be seen in the US court system.

Kerry explained that during his experience in his professional life in which he has lived through many US as well as globally transformative shifts, he has come to believe that soft power is one of the most influential tools to achieve change and triumphs of hard power, in recent years it had been evidenced that the latter has had so many shortcomings.

Cross-party soft power climate project

The former Special Envoy on Climate Change and strong climate advocate recounted his involvement in a soft power project early on via a cross-party climate mitigating initiative. 

The Vietnam veteran, who became a strong opponent against the war in Vietnam after having served there, has since taken a significant interest in the region and helped repair the damage the war caused.  

In a climate mitigation project in the Mekong River, Kerry teamed up with the now-late Republican Senator John McCain, who later unsuccessfully ran for US President as he was defeated by Barack Obama, who became the first black US President to hold office. McCain’s and Kerry’s bi-partisan climate work spanned two administrations, reporting first to the Bush Administration and then to the Clinton administration.

Kerry reflected on the sentiment around the rising populism and the push-back on climate and clean energy focus because governments have not been delivered: “A lot of average folks have been left back in the dust”, he said.

I take my hat off for the UAE

Bucking the trend of many climate advocates, Kerry believes that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who hosted COP28 – the UN climate summit in 2023, deserves a lot more credit than they have been given: “I take my hat off for the UAE by defying expectations by coming up with a strong proposed climate text at COP28, in my view, stronger than Paris”, adding that as a negotiator on behalf of the US government at the talks, he never doubted the country’s commitment to the cause: “I believed that the UAE was serious from day one.”

Overall, he was full of praise for countries in the Arab region by explaining that while many countries have economies based around fossil fuels, they understand the need to change and, as a result, are investing heavily in the energy transition. 

Shame on us for not heeding climate warnings

In a fireside discussion, he told David Haigh that the world needs to take what climate scientists tell us far more seriously, with the evidence coming in far faster than predicted. “We need to make decisions that protect life on Earth; extreme weather events fueled by climate are happening faster than ever before”, Kerry expressed with deep concern before stating: “Shame on us that we can’t act on the climate science.” 

But when it came to the energy transition, Kerry was buoyant and optimistic despite Trump being in charge, recounting: “In the first Trump term, 75% of new electricity capacity in the US came from renewables”, and added that in 2024 that had risen to 90%.

At the age of 80, while having stepped back from the world of politics, he does not appear to haven’t slowed down. Earlier, he had joked to the audience: “At the age of 80, I can do all the things I could at 55; I just can’t remember what they were”. The advocate for climate action explained he is deeply involved in the energy transition, which he is passionate about and very optimistic about. On the back of a “host of exciting things happening in the sector”, he suggested an antidote to the oil drilling slogan ‘Drill baby, drill”, relentlessly used by Trump, ‘Build baby, build’.

One of Kerry’s post-political ventures is with the climate philanthropist, billionaire and former politician Tom Steyer, having joined his sustainability-focused investment firm in October last year, where they’re working on unleashing and utilising clean energy funding. From a technological point of view, he is very excited about geothermal energy, having worked with the innovative start-up Fervo Energy by scaling up the technology.

Kerry concluded that climate politics and economics are simple: “Decisions made by humans or the lack of decisions drive up the temperatures. The facts are simple: we need to stop burning fossil fuels, and until then, we need to capture the emissions we do burn”