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‘Climate Tzar’ John Kerry Under Fire For Use of Private Jet

«Qué fraude»: John Kerry, el zar del clima de Biden, criticado por utilizar su contaminante jet privado

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John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate czar, is under fire for using his polluting private jet while promoting the Democrats’ climate agenda around the world.

The most recent criticism came after several reports that the Biden administration’s special climate envoy attended former President Barack Obama’s 60th birthday in his jet.

A State Department spokesman denied the reports to the Washington Examiner. “Secretary Kerry lives on Martha’s Vineyard, he did not travel there for a party. He took a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, he did not fly commercial or private,” he said.

However, the controversy transcends the alleged flight to Obama’s party, since, according to Fox News, the Kerry family’s private plane was used some 16 times this year alone. According to the State Department, Kerry was not on any of those flights, however, the mere fact that the craft is taking to the skies implies significant levels of pollution.

“Kerry has said he offsets his emissions, although it’s unclear how. Flight logs indicated that his family’s private jet spent over 20 hours in the air from February of last year to January — culminating in an estimated 116 metric tons of carbon emissions,” Fox News reported.

“For comparison, a March 2018 report from Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. That calculation assumed a car that drives around 11,500 miles per year with a fuel economy of about 22.0 miles per gallon.”

What many conservatives criticize are the policy contradictions, since one of the solutions to combat climate change put forward by Democrats in general, and the Biden administration in particular, is to reduce the carbon footprint. Using jets does not help with that goal. According to the New York Post, “private jets have been estimated to emit upward of 40 times as much carbon per passenger as commercial flights.”

US climate envoy John Kerry talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during their meeting in Moscow, Russia, July 12, 2021. (EFE)

John Kerry and the criticism for his private flights

John Kerry is a longtime Democratic politician who before becoming the Biden administration‘s special climate envoy was a senator for Massachusetts and secretary of state under the Obama administration. Kerry has long been branded a hypocrite for pontificating about climate issues affecting the planet while using his private jet for travel.

In 2019, for example, he was honored in Iceland for his fight against climate change, but was also questioned for arriving in the country to attend the event on his jet and justified himself by explaining that private flights can be used as long as they offset “your carbon, it’s the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.”

“I negotiated the Paris Accords for the United States. I’ve been involved in this fight for years. I negotiated with President Xi to bring President Xi to the table so we could get Paris,” Kerry commented as he justified his means of transportation.

Recent reports showing how John Kerry’s private jet continues to fly while he is the Biden administration’s climate czar prompted criticism from several Republican congressmen.

“To John Kerry, global warming is an existential threat that means hundreds of thousands of Americans must lose their jobs. But it’s not quite serious enough to put away his private jets. What a fraud,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Twitter.

Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.

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