‘They Are Working Harder’: John Kerry Defends Climate Activists Who Fly Private to Davos
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Asked in a recent interview about the hypocrisy displayed by climate activists who fly private to the annual World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland, John Kerry defended the elite travelers, insisting that they take pains to “offset” their outsized carbon footprints.
“Well, they actually – I’ve talked to them about it. They offset,” the former Secretary of State told Yahoo News in an interview that was published on Friday afternoon.
“They buy offsets, they offset. And they are working harder than most people I know to be able to try to effect this transition,” Kerry added. Carbon offsets are reductions in carbon emissions used to cancel out the use of carbon-emitting fuels elsewhere. They can be purchased on certain exchanges.
Kerry was one of the leading personalities spearheading discussions around climate change at Davos this January. The gathering attracted nearly 3,000 attendees including business leaders, politicians, and academics.
“I am not convinced we’re going to get there in time to do what the scientists said, which is avoid the worst consequences of the crisis. And those worst consequences are going to affect millions of people all around the world, [in] Africa and other places,” Kerry said during one discussion.
“So, how do we get there? Well, the lesson I’ve learned in the last years and I learned it as secretary and I’ve learned it since, reinforced in spades, is: money, money, money, money, money, money, money. And I’m sorry to say that,” he added.
As participants gathered in Davos this January, the environmental advocacy organization, Greenpeace, launched a campaign demanding private jets be banned from the forum calling out the “ecological hypocrisy of its attendees.”
“Europe is experiencing the warmest January days ever recorded and communities around the world are grappling with extreme weather events supercharged by the climate crisis,” the organization’s spokesperson Klara Maria Schenk said in a statement.
“Meanwhile, the rich and powerful flock to Davos in ultra-polluting, socially inequitable private jets to discuss climate and inequality behind closed doors,” Schenk added.
Greenpeace commissioned a study that was published ahead of the 2023 WEF meeting showing that 9,700 tonnes of CO2 were released into the atmosphere as a result of private jet travel to the conference, the equivalent of 350,000 vehicles.
The research also found that over half of the private jets bound for Davos were short flights involving under 500 miles of travel that “could have easily been train trips.” Another 38 percent were deemed “ultra-short” with the smaller being 13 miles.
Kerry also denied his own use of private jets. When asked about news that he had recently switched from flying private to commercial, the climate envoy called it a “misnomer.”
“I’ve had one, maybe two private flights, which are US military flights in order to get to China during COVID, where we were forced into that. But I fly commercially,” he said.
Kerry’s family sold its private jet last year, Fox News reported. The jet had taken 48 trips lasting 60 hours or longer and released an estimated 325 metric tons of carbon since Kerry was appointed to Biden’s administration.
