Kerry to leave climate envoy job Wednesday

Climate envoy John Kerry will be leaving his Biden administration role this week.

Wednesday will be his last day as the special presidential envoy for climate, a spokesperson confirmed to The Hill. The spokesperson declined to provide additional information on Kerry’s next steps.

Kerry said in January that he would be “shifting” to work on the 2024 election. He is also expected to do work with Yale University.

Last week, during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations, Kerry said that though he was leaving the post of climate envoy, “I am not leaving the climate fight.”

“I intend to be part of the effort to accelerate the transition and meet the goals set out in Dubai,” Kerry said, referring to last year’s global climate summit. 

Reflecting on his first day on the job, Kerry said: “The most critical decision of that day was a commitment to do every single thing in our power to be able to limit the earth’s temperature increase to 1.5 degrees centigrade” — the equivalent of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, a threshold scientists say the world must not exceed if it is to avoid some of the most devastating potential impacts of climate change.

The Biden administration announced Biden climate adviser John Podesta will take over as lead of the administration’s international climate policy — though he’ll be based out of the White House rather than the State Department, as Kerry was.