'We're in trouble' -Kerry on climate goals
"We're in trouble. I hope everyone understands that," Kerry told an event called Building Momentum to UN COP27 hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and officials from Egypt, the host of the next UN climate summit.
Kerry told the event he is concerned about the recent uptick in the use of coal globally and about plans to build new coal plants without carbon capture technology.
Kerry said actions countries have taken do not meet the severity of the problem, even though "a huge amount of good" came out of the COP26 summit in Glasgow last November, including concluding the "rule book" for executing the Paris Climate Agreement.
Kerry said the recent uptick in coal use over the last year and plans by countries to continue building coal plants will worsen global warming and urged countries to change course.
"Most countries have the ability to deploy very significant additional amounts of renewables and they're not choosing to do that," he said, adding that sticking with coal or planning to build out natural gas infrastructure would lock in decades of additional greenhouse gas emissions.
