John Kerry on climate change, China: Yahoo Finance at Davos

As more and more global leaders pledge funds and policies to combat the worsening climate crisis, a worry among many is that these resolutions are not coming fast enough despite the well-documented evidence and subsequent weather events tied to climate change.

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry joins Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to explore the plans on his agenda as the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate under the Biden administration, a role Kerry will be departing from this spring.

"If you're not ready to acknowledge science and to recognize the reality of what is happening around the planet with greater intensity — storms, many more floods, torrential rainfall, greater intensity to tornados and winds with greater frequency — the damage that is being done by the climate crisis is now costing us already in the billions," Kerry explains. "And it's going to cost much more if we don't move now."

While pointing to major corporations and CEOs as being pertinent to leading green transitions, Kerry also talks about his work with Chinese officials to open up and drive dialogues on climate change — "We have to all be at the table" — ultimately calling climate threats "a multilateral, global issue."

It's all part of Yahoo Finance's exclusive coverage from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where our team will speak to top decision-makers as well as preeminent leaders in business, finance, and politics about the world’s most pressing issues and priorities for the coming year.

Watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live here.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

- Among the many big weighty issues, of course, that are being discussed at Davos besides AI are climate change and the fight to slow climate change. Of course, pivotal in that fight is special climate envoy for the US John Kerry. And he is joining us now. Of course, Secretary Kerry, first of all, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

JOHN KERRY: Thank you very much.

- We have just gotten the news, of course, in the last couple of days that you're going to be stepping down from this particular role sometime in the spring. So in your remaining few months, what's on the agenda? What do you really want to get accomplished, considering the clock is ticking on climate change?

JOHN KERRY: Well, the same thing is on the agenda that's been on the agenda from the beginning when President Biden created this role. And that is that the world is behind in this effort to deal with the climate crisis. And we're seeing the incredible costs to communities all around the world. And people are dying, 7 million people a year die just from the bad air quality that comes from greenhouse gases that are put up in the atmosphere.