San Francisco Frontiers - Sounding warning, Kerry urges new ways on climate finance

Kerry, who is stepping down as the US climate envoy, described an agreement in December in Dubai at the last UN summit as historic for its call on the planet to move away from fossil fuels in large part responsible for the planet's rising temperatures.

But he warned that the COP28 agreement must not be "reduced to mere words on a piece of paper."

"If we don't do what we've said we're going to do in these next months, that's exactly what could happen, encouraging cynicism and dropout-ism and huge disappointment around the world," Kerry said at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kerry, an 80-year-old former secretary of state, senator and presidential contender, has said he will focus outside of government on mobilizing private funding to complement government efforts on climate.

Kerry said that the United States should consider a system of financial guarantees for investors, which would cover risks if projects fail.

"It's time for creativity. We've come up with new financial instruments when we needed them before, and my judgment is we need them now," he said.

He pointed to his work as envoy with Indonesia and Vietnam on so-called Just Energy Transition Partnerships, or JETPs -- financing deals between a small group of wealthy countries and an emerging economy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels or take other climate action.

Calling such deals "very bespoke," Kerry said, "We don't have time to do that."

"We need to help deploy larger sums with greater confidence that the deal is bankable and we de-risked it sufficiently," he said.

A recent study by the Climate Policy Initiative pointed to assessments that credit guarantees could mobilize between six and 25 times as much financing as traditional loans, with developing countries in particular looking to reduce uncertainties.

Q.Nelson--SFF