(Bloomberg) -- No single politician can stop the rush of investments in technologies to help address climate change, according to former US Secretary of State and green envoy John Kerry.
“There’s an incredible new world of opportunity,” in sectors including AI, nuclear and geothermal, he told Bloomberg TV in an interview. “Big new grids have to be built to provide energy. We have data centers that need to be built.” Kerry stepped down earlier this year as President Joe Biden’s top climate envoy.
Two-thirds of the record $3 trillion forecast to be invested this year in energy sources will be devoted to sectors such as renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear and grids, the International Energy Agency said in June. The remaining $1 trillion will go to coal, gas and oil.
“For the first time in history, the marketplace writ large has said this is where we’re going,” said Kerry, hired recently as co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, which was co-founded by billionaire Tom Steyer and Katie Hall.
Kerry also warned President-elect Donald Trump over the risks of again withdrawing the US from the landmark Paris climate pact.
To do so “would cede leadership to China, the very thing that he says we don’t want to do,” Kerry said Thursday. “He would diminish the ability of the world to be able to respond to this existential crisis.”
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