John Kerry: The UK Climate Summit is the "last best chance" in the world

The UK Climate Summit is the "last best chance" in the world

US climate envoy John Kerry told the BBC that the United Nations climate summit in the United Kingdom in November was the "last best chance" to avoid the worst environmental consequences for the world.

He said years were lost on the climate issue under President Donald Trump, "who did not believe in any of it."

Dozens of world leaders will attend the COP26 conference in Glasgow.

Mr. Kerry spoke as President Joe Biden signed a series of executive orders designed to tackle climate change.

His recent decrees include a freeze on new oil and gas leases on public lands and plans to double the capacity produced from offshore wind by 2030.

Biden - who re-entered the United States in the 2016 Paris climate agreement in one of his first acts as president - said America must lead the response to the crisis.

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  What did Kerry say?

The newly appointed American Climate Caesar said: “Glasgow is going to be very important.

“In fact, I would say that in my opinion, it is the last best opportunity that the world should come together in order to do the things we need to do to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis.

"Three years ago, we were told we had 12 years to avoid those consequences. Three of those years were wasted because we had Donald Trump, who didn't believe in any of them. Now we have nine years to try to do that what science tells us we should do."

But at a White House press conference on Wednesday, Kerry acknowledged that the crisis would not be resolved even if the United States cut its emissions to zero.

He (Mr. Biden) knows that Paris alone is not enough. Not when close to 90% of all global emissions of the planet come from outside the borders of the United States.

"We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn't solved."

During his four years in office, Trump rolled back environmental regulations as he sought to maximize the nation's fossil fuel production.

The Republican president also claimed credit for the United States achieving a level of energy independence as it became a net exporter of oil halfway through his term.

Trump - who once described climate change as a hoax - withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, arguing that he unfairly left the world's other largest polluters - India and China - free to use fossil fuels.

Nearly 200 countries have signed the agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.