Photo/Illutration John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, during an interview with The Asahi Shimbun conducted in Tokyo on Aug. 31 (Shinnosuke Ito)

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has taken up the clarion call to combat climate change, urging world leaders to do more to quash global warming.

“We have less and less time left to try to avoid the worst consequences of (climate) crisis,” the former U.S. secretary of state said on Aug. 31 during an interview with The Asahi Shimbun.

After arriving in Japan, Kerry met with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi among others.

They discussed issues ahead of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will be held from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Kerry will travel to Tianjin in China and remain there until Sept. 3.

In the interview, Kerry said Japan made the right decision to target reducing greenhouse gases by 46 percent in 2030 compared to the level in fiscal 2013 and to join the agreement at the G-7 Summit to stop funding new coal-fired power plants abroad.

“I think Prime Minister Suga and his government, his ministers deserve a great deal of credit for stepping up and showing real leadership,” Kerry said.

The decision at the G-7 “is a very significant step” and a “doable” one, he added.

It creates “new jobs and new opportunities for the economy of Japan in the long run,” he said.

One of the goals set under the Paris Agreement is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably limit it to 1.5 degrees, compared to pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

But in the latest report released in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees temporarily within the next 20 years even if each nation boosts reduction measures.

Kerry said: “If we are going to hold the Earth's temperature to 1.5 degrees or try to, we must reduce (emissions) significantly between 2020 and 2030. This is the decade of decision, and COP26 is the moment where we have to execute.”

Kerry said that Japan, Britain, the EU, Canada and the United States, which account for 55 percent of the global GDP, have “come together to get on a 1.5-degree track.” 

But “the other 45 percent is still not there yet,” he said.

The key to make the upcoming events in Glasgow meaningful is “to work to bring more countries on board,” he said.

China is the largest CO2 emitter, accounting for approximately 30 percent of the world's emissions, following the United States.

China has set a goal to achieve zero emissions by 2060. But its emissions are not expected to start declining until around 2030.

Kerry said, “My hope is that China and the United States can come together around a set of ambitious goals (and) working towards the achievement of the goals of Paris and Glasgow.”

Such cooperation means “reducing the level of emissions” and “beginning the process of transitioning from the current energy structure into the energy economy of the future,” he added.

Asked by a reporter if the United States is “willing to push China” to set a more ambitious goal, Kerry said the work has to be done mutually with respect to one another.

“It is not a question of ‘pushing,’” he said. “It is a question of having a respectful conversation in which we talk about what is needed to be done and how each of us can make our appropriate contributions to getting that done.

“I think that it is a mistake to suggest that one nation or another is going to push somebody into doing something. I think it is important for us to find a mutual road, where we are getting enough done to get the job done.”

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