by John Kerry
I asked Todd and the team to draft a memo describing how China and the United States could embark on a special journey together. Todd politely said that I misunderstood how things worked, arguing that the Chinese wouldn’t want to be blindsided by our ideas in an in-person meeting with Yang, who by that point had been promoted to state councilor. Instead, Todd explained, they’d want any suggestions vetted with staff at lower levels. I worried that this was an invitation to bureaucratic inertia. It may have been the way things had been working, but I thought we needed to change the dynamic. I thought it would be a mistake to allow my first major bilateral visit to China to come and go without making real progress.
Todd relented. He sent me the memo I’d requested. I departed for China prepared to present it. On the flight out, as Danny Russel and I were reviewing the proposal, Danny again raised the risks of rushing the Chinese. I said I was comfortable with the conversation I had had with Yang. I trusted the relationship and personally believed we were not rushing them beyond their tolerance level.
When we arrived in China, I presented the ideas to Yang. To my delight, he was indeed receptive. By the end of that trip, two months into my tenure, together we launched the U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group (CCWG), a commitment of the world’s two largest emitters and economies to work together to significantly reduce the growth of global emissions. Three months after that, China and the United States approved five joint initiatives for the CCWG, focusing on a range of climate challenges, from the emissions of heavy-duty vehicles to the development of smart grids. Finally, we were approaching this global threat not as rivals, but as teammates.
It was a start. We had mended some of the wounds from years past. But I still felt we needed a major joint achievement to set us up for success two years later in Paris. I wanted us to be able to stand with the Chinese and announce a cooperative approach that could help lead the G77 and the developed world to success in Paris. One of our team members came up with a variation on that—building on the previous U.S. proposal that nations put forward their own individual emissions reductions targets before the 2015 COP. What if the United States and China set the bar for these targets by announcing our respective, ambitious goals together, when our presidents were scheduled to meet in Beijing late in 2014. I thought that could work, providing that the Chinese were prepared to make a sufficient effort.
It would reinforce the principle already adopted in prior negotiations of “common but differentiated” responsibility—an acceptance by the developed world that many countries were simply not able to afford the same approaches they could. We would each announce the best we could do. That would set the example we were looking for to all other nations. We would establish measurable but achievable goals, thereby inviting all countries to participate. It would also mean the United States would have to expedite the internal process for setting our own target, but if we were able to pull it off, the gridlock of developed versus developing could be behind us. We would come to Paris united, making our shared goal of reaching a comprehensive, global climate agreement much easier to achieve.
President Obama agreed, assuming, of course, we were able to convince the Chinese to develop ambitious targets so that we wouldn’t lose our established credibility. As long as their target was real and appropriate, we would be helping them to transition away from international criticism. Sharing the spotlight with the United States in such a positive way would also help to cement China’s journey to leader on the world stage. And most important, people in both nations would benefit from the elevated ambition—as would the world, providing we were setting the bar high enough. The Chinese like to frame policy proposals as win-wins, but sometimes what they put on the table is a win-lose in China’s favor. But on this occasion, our cooperation could produce a victory for everyone.
We spent the summer and early fall negotiating in secret. If anything leaked prematurely, the entire initiative might fall apart. In October 2014, a month before President Obama’s trip to China, I invited Yang Jiechi to Boston for a few days. I wanted his visit to be as productive and personal as possible. Some of us were worried that our efforts wouldn’t be complete in time for the president’s Beijing stop. After a morning work session, I hosted State Councilor Yang for lunch at Legal Sea Foods on the docks of Boston Harbor. I asked Todd Stern and John Podesta, President Obama’s counselor who was leading the White House preparations for the trip to China and was a principal advisor to the president on climate, to join us.
The luncheon location was not an accident. Just a few decades earlier, the harbor was a national environmental scandal, mocked by George H. W. Bush in his campaign for president in 1988. Fishing or swimming there was an invitation to disease. Now, after a $2 billion cleanup, the harbor was an economic asset for the city. I wanted to show Yang Jiechi that an environmental disaster could be transformed into an economic engine.
We met in a private room upstairs with a handful of other government officials. Standing on the balcony above the dock, we took in a spectacular view of the harbor. Then over lunch, we discussed our shared responsibility, given the size and power of our nations, to lead the world in responding to the threat of climate change. We spent hours together that afternoon, and while we had known each other for many years, after that, I think we both felt as though there was a new level of understanding between us. The Boston meeting helped crystallize preparations for the presidents to meet and make a powerful announcement. There were last-minute tensions over the targets, but with hard work from the State Department and important input from the White House, including a subsequent visit to China, the gaps were closed.
A month later, on Veterans Day, when President Obama and I were in Beijing, he and President Xi stood side by side and announced the respective target emissions reductions of our two nations. It was quite a moment: two countries that had long led opposing camps with respect to climate change standing together as partners in the face of the shared threat. There we were in one of the grand rooms of the Great Hall of the People, with the two most powerful presidents in the world making an improbable announcement. After so many years of hearing people say this could never happen and we were naive for even trying, after so many years of effort traveling to one COP after another, I finally felt we had reached a moment of turning. The crashes of Rio, Kyoto and Copenhagen melted into the past. Now, in Beijing, there was a real sense of possibility. We believed this day would galvanize countries everywhere to follow suit with their own ambitious targets. We wanted to send them a message: success in Paris was possible. The roadblocks we had hit for decades were finally starting to be removed.
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AS THE DECEMBER 2015 date for convening in Paris approached, our goal was to keep up the momentum. The EU announced its target shortly after our U.S.-China joint announcement, which meant the three largest polluters in the world were out in front—a positive sign. But that still left the vast majority of the world’s countries silent. It became a top priority to get as many nations as possible to put their targets on the table in advance of Paris. Obviously, some nations lacked the resources necessary to develop ambitious and realistic targets, let alone craft and implement policies that would actually help them achieve those targets. Luckily, the United States was able to mobilize a deep bench of climate experts to assist those countries. We made extensive technical assistance available to help foreign governments arrive at emissions reduction levels, develop targets and devise strategies for sustainable development. We did this with the understanding that emissions anywhere threaten the future for people everywhere. We had a national interest in making sure the most ambitious targets possible were being set in every corner of the world.
The State Department team was able to track countries’ progress closely. I made sure it was on my counterparts’ radars as well, raising climate change in nearly every bilateral meeting I attended. At first, I would get funny looks from some of the ministers since, for many of them, climate change was not
a topic dealt with by the foreign ministry. But, given the global security implications of climate change, in my view, it was an issue that should rise to the highest levels of all governments. With that conviction, each September I convened an annual climate-focused meeting of foreign ministers on the margins of the UN General Assembly. Before long, it was rare for me to find an interlocutor who wasn’t fully briefed on climate issues. It even reached the point where, frequently, I wasn’t the first to raise the topic.
As the date for the Paris talks neared, it was imperative we ensure our own house was in order as well. By this point, President Obama recognized there was little hope for a legislative fix in the United States to reduce carbon emissions. He decided he had no choice but to use his executive authority to launch the Clean Power Plan. That decision, in addition to other policies such as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards targeting vehicles’ fuel consumption and the tax breaks for renewable energy investments, helped make certain we were on our way to cutting domestic emissions dramatically.
But we also needed to make changes to our climate change approach from a broader policy perspective. I had observed how our climate team essentially operated in its own silo at the State Department. Most of the regional bureaus didn’t have a thorough understanding of the issue, let alone the negotiations. One of the tools available to a secretary of state is the issuance of policy guidance cables that can be distributed to the entire department. I took immediate advantage of this practice to make climate change the focus of my first guidance cable. I set out my expectation that all diplomats become relatively fluent on the issue and directed all posts and bureaus to make the issue a priority in their day-to-day diplomatic work.
I also made the department’s work on climate change a key pillar of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which is designed to guide State Department planning from one administration to the next. This has resulted in, for example, climate-related modules being added to the training of new Foreign Service officers.
In the years to come, climate change will present an enormous number of challenges to our Foreign Service officers and posts all around the world. There will likely be large numbers of climate refugees as a result of drought, more intense storms, food shortages caused by catastrophic failure of crops, fires, water shortages, fish stock failures, sea-level rise, migration of species including human beings impacted by killer heat, new communicable diseases and failure of health systems to cope—just to name some of the challenges already manifesting themselves. And I was driven by the stark reality that even today, no country in the world is doing enough to live sustainably.
Because of our economic power, our military might and our values, all of which contribute to the responsible role we play in the world, the United States has traditionally led efforts to respond to global crises. Climate change is without question high on the list. The State Department needs to prioritize this threat. Every person in it needs to see the interconnection of all these issues. Choices that other governments make—all at the heart of diplomacy—will affect our country and our citizens.
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WHEN THE WORLD gathered in Paris at the end of 2015, everyone knew the heads of state would not attend for the full negotiation. They were there to create momentum and kick-start the negotiating process. In addition to the opening day speech, President Obama spent a couple of days on the ground, meeting with a number of his counterparts, including, of course, President Xi of China and Prime Minister Modi of India. But, as expected, it’s hard to have productive conversations and manage the different agendas of 150 heads of state. It’s hard just to navigate the facilities and coordinate their staffs and security details. Most of the heads of state departed Paris within a day or two to leave us to our daily negotiating.
I was scheduled to be on hand for as much of the talks as possible. I had slugged it out at too many COPs over the years and waited a long time for the ripeness of this moment, to which we had already contributed by bringing China to the table. I did have to depart briefly for a couple of days in the middle of the two weeks in order to attend the annual NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels, at which we discussed our Afghanistan policy, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe ministerial meeting in Belgrade—but I returned immediately. Paris was the top priority with the promise for greatest global impact. We couldn’t lose the moment. All the parties were aware that the call to Paris had established a two-week period for the negotiations. The conference would conclude on December 11. The pressure was on.
When it came to expertise, the United States was armed to the teeth. In addition to my direct staff, Todd was there with the entire climate team. They were an extraordinary, dedicated band of devotees to the cause, having worked tirelessly for years to shepherd each step of the journey. Without them, there was no possibility of securing an agreement. We also had experts from the Environmental Protection Agency; the Departments of Treasury, Energy and Agriculture; and the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office. A number of White House officials remained on-site as well, including Brian Deese, who had succeeded John Podesta as Obama’s senior advisor on climate issues. I had first met Brian when he interned for me in the Senate. He had risen high and fast on smarts and good judgment. I was happy to be working with him again. Our team was a brilliant cadre, each person with his or her own unique proficiency. I couldn’t have been more confident in who was sitting behind the U.S. flag.
We knew coming in to Paris what the remaining biggest hurdles would be. But as the talks got under way, we got a feel for the developing dynamic. Every large negotiation like this gets caught in certain currents driven by regional leaders or by big countries with big interests. As we had hoped, the developing versus developed country dynamic was different from past COPs, but new challenges presented themselves. Instead of a head-to-head standoff between the United States and China, with everyone else casting their lot in one of our camps, our two nations were more or less in agreement. But that led some countries—in particular, the low-lying island states for which climate change was an existential threat—to worry that we would pursue a weak agreement that met our nations’ needs but not those of poorer nations.
It was a valid fear. Allaying it required careful diplomacy. I had met several times with the leaders of the small islands, as had President Obama. We had taken every opportunity possible to reassure them of our commitment to their future. To emphasize this, we also joined a coalition of nations spearheaded by the Marshall Islands, with a stated goal of reaching an ambitious agreement.
Still, while the United States certainly understood its responsibility as the world’s wealthiest nation and largest historical emitter, and we fully supported the so-called UN Green Climate Fund to help poorer nations grapple with climate change, we knew that we couldn’t return home with an agreement that legally required the United States to pay anything resembling reparations for the pollution we emitted before we fully understood the consequences. That was the ultimate nonstarter.
Resolving this issue was essential, but the U.S. negotiating team found Tuvalu’s chief negotiator to be particularly dug in. He was utterly intractable on the matter. The country’s prime minister, Enele Sopoaga, was seen to be more reasonable, but Sopoaga seemed to be held in check by his chief negotiator, who was typically in the meetings. Little progress was made. So we agreed that I should request to meet with him one-on-one, with no staff, and see if we could work something out.
I met with him and suggested we honor their need to take note of the loss-and-damage language, so important to them, by acknowledging it in the agreement, as Tuvalu and its negotiating partners wanted, but it would be placed in a different section of the agreement from where they had proposed. We would put the liability-and-compensation language, so important to us, front and center in the decision, where it was critical to make clear we were not creating a new cause of action exposing the developed world to a rash of lawsuits.
This
compromise sounds simple now, but it was harder for some nations to swallow than others. As you would imagine, passions ran high among less developed nations, particularly island states whose existence was at stake but which had contributed next to nothing to the problem. They believed the most developed countries owed them compensation for damages. While we acknowledged that bad decisions—originally made out of ignorance, then in a stubborn refusal to accept facts—had contributed to the global problem, there was no way any wealthy country or soon-to-be wealthy country was going to sign up for liability and compensation. The breakthrough with Tuvalu was critical and welcome.
As the scheduled end of the talks approached, the French, who were not only hosting the conference but also serving as the rotating COP president, released initial drafts of agreement text. We raced to make copies and distribute them to all our experts, who took a half hour to read through it. Then the senior members of the delegation joined a dozen issue-area experts around the table in the U.S. office space and carefully analyzed what worked for the United States and what didn’t. While I wasn’t expected to be present, I found it particularly helpful to listen to the experts debate the impact of one provision or another. Hearing from the people who lived and breathed each of the respective sections was the best way for me to understand where we might have “give” and where we needed “take.”
Together, we continued to work toward the Friday, December 11, deadline. I connected with Todd in the morning and talked through which countries I needed to lobby that day. President Obama remained engaged from Washington, placing calls as needed to his counterparts, including Prime Minister Modi of India and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil.
But by Thursday night, the progress we had been making stalled, and in some cases, we seemed to be going backward. I returned to my hotel around 11:00 p.m. to make a secure call to Washington, but the team, frustrated by what they were hearing in the negotiating hall, asked me to return there around midnight. Once I got there, I understood why: a meeting of all the parties had devolved once again into a debate over whether developed and developing countries should have different requirements. For a brief instant I feared the same argument that kept us divided for so many years and that the China outreach was meant to forever bury was now at the eleventh hour going to rear its ugly head. I sat among the delegates and listened for a while. Many of the faces around the table were new to the debate. Less developed countries were expressing their outrage that they were paying the price for developed nations whose economies had developed without regard to the impact of fossil fuels on the environment. Furthermore, now that everyone was negatively impacted, they didn’t believe the richer countries were bearing enough of the burden. To them, “common but differentiated” responsibility meant primarily defining the burden of the developed world. I sensed the potential for things to stay stuck.