James Shaw says US will have to 'rebuild credibility' on climate change following phone call with John Kerry
Climate Change Minister James Shaw says the United States will need to "rebuild its credibility" on climate change with serious domestic action. His comment came following a long phone-call with former US Secretary of State and Democratic nominee John Kerry on Wednesday morning, who has been appointed US climate envoy by new US President Joe Biden. Shaw said the conversation was encouraging and lasted almost an hour, with Kerry indicating a willingness for the US to tackle climate change seriously, and showing an interest in New Zealand's climate-related financial disclosure scheme and emissions trading scheme (ETS). He said the language indicated the US was serious about challenging climate change, but the proof would be in how it handled domestic action, particularly in a country with rampant climate change denialism. "He conveyed a very clear commitment to both lifting the scale of their ambition dramatically, and backing it up with action on the ground," Shaw said. READ MORE: * Can America move on from Trump or is this just the beginning? * US Election: How a win for Democrat Joe Biden could benefit New Zealand * Coronavirus: what does the UN summit delay mean for climate change? "The language he was using was strong and directionally it was really really good. We did talk about needing to phase out fossil fuels pretty aggressively. If they can deliver on what he's talking about, that would be just enormous." Shaw said New Zealand would have to "wait and see" whether this would be possible. The United States is the world's second-largest emitter and one of the larger emitters on a per-capita basis. It has no country-wide carbon tax or emissions trading scheme to deal with carbon emissions. "I did say [to Kerry]: We are very aware of the political situation in the United States and how difficult it is for the federal government to make progress on this. To be fair to him, he's yet to really test the waters." Shaw said the conversation was a complete turnaround from the attitude of the Trump administration, who yanked the US out of the Paris climate pact and flirted with outright denialism. He said he had never had a conversation about climate change with anyone from the Trump administration - and had only spoken to former US ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown once. "It's very good for 'project hope'. It's just such a reverse of the Trump administration's approach," Shaw said. He hoped the United States would spur wider global action, but this wouldn't be easy. "They're going to have to rebuild their credibility through domestic action. Have them re-engage will really help with the international situation which has been making very sluggish progress given the Trump's administration."