The Optimist’s Challenge
JOHN KERRY CAN FEEL THE HEAT. It's A sunny mid-July day in Naples, Italy, and we’re sitting on the roof of his hotel overlooking the Mediterranean.
As tourists on the other side of the patio snap photos of Mount Vesuvius looming in the background, Kerry is warning about the fate of human life on earth. Kerry, 77, has been on the public stage for decades as a Senator, presidential candidate and U.S. Secretary of State and, on paper, his latest role representing the U.S. as President Biden’s climate envoy may look like a demotion. But Kerry rejects any question about why he’s taken this role. The fate of civilization is on the line, and he will do anything he can to help. “I’ve fought around war and peace, and that was life and death. This is already life and death—and in growing terms,” he says. “This is existential, and we need to behave like it.”
Despite the stifling heat and humidity, the lobby of the Excelsior hotel several stories below is brimming with life unthinkable just a few months before. Chatter in Arabic, Dutch and Japanese can all be detected among the cadre of diplomats who have descended here for a gathering of energy and climate ministers from the world’s biggest economies. It’s a key meeting in the yearlong slog to COP26, the U.N. climate conference set to take place in Glasgow in November. A few miles away, in the city center, thousands of protesters are marching and chanting, insistent that official proceedings aren’t moving fast enough. SYSTEM CHANGE: ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE, one sign reads.
The stakes are existential, but the debates at the Excelsior can seem pedantic; in one conference room, negotiators are tussling over the wording of how countries should submit new climate plans. On the roof, I ask Kerry about the various conflicts that some fear might scuttle the COP26 talks—the U.S. rift with China, Europe’s plan to tax climate laggards and the demands from developing nations that their rich counterparts do more. Kerry takes each one in stride, responding to every question with optimism that reason will prevail. “I’ve always believed in diplomacy,” he says. “I believe in the ability of people to sit down and try to work reasonably together.” In the frenzied 24-plus
