US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday made a stirring appeal to all countries, including his own, to press ahead with the fight against climate change, saying a failure to do so would be a “betrayal of devastating consequences.”
Without mentioning Donald Trump by name, Kerry’s speech at the UN climate talks was partly aimed at the Republican president-elect who has called global warming a “hoax” and has pledged to “cancel” the Paris deal limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
“No one has the right to make decisions that affect billions of people based solely on ideology or without proper input,” Kerry said.
With 2016 on track to be the hottest year on record, Kerry said the impacts of global warming are now evident across the world with record-breaking droughts, rising sea levels, unusual storms and millions of people displaced by weather events.
“At some point even the strongest skeptic has to acknowledge that something disturbing is happening,” he said.