{"id":308265,"date":"2024-03-14T09:55:39","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T08:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=308265"},"modified":"2024-03-14T09:55:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T08:55:42","slug":"a-tale-of-two-johns-as-specs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=308265","title":{"rendered":"A tale of two Johns as SPECs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Duggan Flanakin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Leave it to Joe Biden. When the 80-year-old plutocrat John Forbes Kerry steps down as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC), he chose 75-year-old John David Podesta, Jr., to finish out the year. The two climate czars could not have come from more different beginnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his self-important mission to \u201csave the planet,\u201d Kerry has been called a \u201cclimate clown\u201d on social media and \u201cthe Forrest Gump of Climate\u201d by Bloomberg Media. Ever the aloof Eurocentric diplomat, Kerry never lets anyone forget how important he is. Podesta, from much more humble roots, prefers to work behind the scenes, often in a supporting role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was clearly past time for Kerry to go. The day before he \u201cretired,\u201d Kerry spoke at a press conference and raised eyebrows and temperatures when he blurted out that people might \u201cfeel better\u201d about the Russian government if Russia would just commit to fighting climate change as hard as he has done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerry\u2019s strange remarks came in response to a question from a Russian reporter as to whether the long-running U.S. campaign against Russian influence \u2013 one that has escalated into a major war that could soon become nuclear \u2013 was interfering with climate cooperation. The Russian Federation waited until 2019 \u2013 when Paris opponent Donald Trump was President \u2014 to adopt the Paris Agreement, overcoming strong opposition from Russian industry lobbyists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Rusian Edelgeriev, President Putin\u2019s climate advisor, said his country would become a \u201cfull-fledged participant in this international instrument.\u201d He boasted that Russia had cut its carbon emissions nearly in half since 1990, the year of the collapse of the old Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But oil and gas provide about 20 percent of the Russian economy, and Europeans who had shunned fossil fuel production themselves were still heavily dependent on Russian fossil fuels to keep their own economies afloat. Russia today is developing coal resources in the Far East and wants to open more Arctic shipping lanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine the grating of teeth in the Kremlin as Kerry droned on that even with its \u201cillegal\u201d war against Ukraine, \u201cthey ought to be able to find the effort to be responsible on the climate issue.\u201d Maybe Kerry was saddest that, because of the war, he has not been able to fly back and forth to Moscow (or preferably, to a Crimean dacha?) to \u201cnegotiate\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Missing from Kerry\u2019s diatribe was the well-known fact that Russia only contributes 5 percent of global human-caused carbon dioxide emissions, less than half that of the U.S. (12.6 percent), and only a tiny fraction of China\u2019s whopping 33 percent. But Kerry would not dare tell China it \u201cought to be more responsible on the climate issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, after lengthy negotiations in Beijing, Kerry insisted he was not disappointed that no new agreements came from his \u201cwork,\u201d or that President Xi reaffirmed that China would pursue its climate goals at its own pace and in its own way. Kerry was just glad he got a few free meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his first year as SPEC, Kerry took a reported 48 trips on his wife\u2019s private jet, including meetings with authoritarian heads of state. He refused to publicly criticize China for building a new coal-fired power plant every week. But he did compare the fight against climate change to the Allies\u2019 fight to defeat Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Americans may remember that Kerry was the (losing) Democratic Party nominee for President in 2004. They may also know that, long before became the \u201cclimate guy,\u201d Kerry was a spokesperson for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Massachusetts brahmin, after a failed Congressional campaign and a short stint as Michael Dukakis\u2019 lieutenant governor, parlayed his fame (or infamy) into a U.S. Senate seat in 1984. He stayed in the Senate until 2013, when he became President Obama\u2019s Secretary of State, following the inestimable Hillary Clinton. His crowning moment there was signing the Paris Agreement on climate change. No wonder Biden chose him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As SPEC, Kerry is best known for his defense<\/a> of his widespread use of private jets. Kerry famously stated, \u201cIf you offset your carbon, it is the ONLY choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerry\u2019s messianic vision continued: \u201cI have to fly to meet with people to get things done, but what I am doing almost full time is working to win the battle for climate change. And if I offset and contribute my life to do this I am not going to be put on the defensive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerry loves flying almost as much as mirrors. He even flew on a giant military transport to Antarctica as a lame duck just days after President Trump was elected in 2016 \u2013 ostensibly to meet with scientists about the impact of climate change on the frozen continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerry has always been \u201cspecial.\u201d His grandmother sent him to elite boarding schools in Europe as his father served in the State Department\u2019s Bureau of United Nations Affairs, then as U.S. attorney for Berlin, and later at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young John was whisked back to the States to attend more elite boarding schools before matriculating at Yale University, where he distinguished himself as a debater and soccer player but not as a student. His GPA was \u201clackluster\u201d (a 76 average), but it got him into Yale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before marrying the billionaire heiress to John Heinz\u2019s huge fortune, Kerry was already the wealthiest person in the U.S. Senate (other than Heinz), as the beneficiary of at least four trusts inherited from Forbes family relatives. His own 2011 financial disclosure admits to personal assets ranging from $230 to $320 million (not including any Heinz money).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, 75-year-old John Podesta grew up on the streets of Chicago, the son of a Greek-American mother and an Italian-American father, a factory worker who never finished high school. His big break in life came when he met the young Bill Clinton in 1970 when both were working on a Senate campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John and his older brother Tony built their lives around politics, with John serving as an attorney for various Democratic Party leaders and Tony working as a lobbyist. Together they formed the Podesta Group, a government relations and public affairs lobbying firm with close ties to the Democratic Party. Not bad for a couple of poor kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics has been good to the Podestas. John served as chief of staff for President Clinton and counselor to President Obama before joining the Biden Administration as senior advisor for clean energy innovation and implementation. There he has overseen the disbursement of $370 to $783 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives under the (sic) Inflation Reduction Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Podestas have left their biggest public marks through the political nonprofits they created, Tony was a founding president of Norman Lear\u2019s People for the American Way, while John is the founder and former president of the Center for American Progress, which helped to craft the Inflation Reduction Act, a cash cow for progressive interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In sum, while Kerry has often been compared to a strutting peacock, Podesta has long been one of the most effective operatives in Washington and a major architect of the Progressive agenda. Kerry may have gotten a lot of headlines, but Podesta has used the power of the purse to impact the business and diplomatic communities far more effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leave it to Joe Biden. When the 80-year-old plutocrat John Forbes Kerry steps down as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC), he chose 75-year-old John David Podesta, Jr., to finish out the year. The two climate czars could not have come from more different beginnings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":308269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Leave it to Joe Biden. When the 80-year-old plutocrat John Forbes Kerry steps down as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC), he chose 75-year-old John David Podesta, Jr., to finish out the year. The two climate czars could not have come from more 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to Biden\u2019s reelection campaign. 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