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John Kerry: Carbon border tariffs are ‘a legitimate idea to have on the table’

(EurActiv, 10 Dec 2021) The EU’s proposed carbon border adjustment mechanism is a “legitimate” instrument to consider, and the United States are “exploring it” as well. “It may be a tool that we have no choice but to employ if other countries are not going to be serious enough about reducing carbon,” John Kerry told EURACTIV in an interview.

Well, first of all, we signed on and agreed with the cover decision. And the cover decision very clearly says “phase down”. So we did agree with that.

The “phase out” language was one that we couldn’t agree to because of our constitutional capacity. We are already phasing out coal, but we can’t give an instruction under our constitution to the states to make that happen, this is just not constitutional. At least that’s the way our lawyers read it.

So we told everybody – look, we’re not against it, we’re trying to proceed forward ourselves. President Biden has set the very ambitious goal of having a power sector that will be completely carbon-free by 2035. We’ve closed over 500 coal plants in the last seven years. And we will only have 100 left as we go into the next 10 years. And we’ve pledged that by 2035, we will be zero carbon in our power sector.

So we’re doing it, we’re going to do it. We just can’t sign on to something which creates a legal authority we don’t have.

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EurActiv, 10 Dec 2021: John Kerry: Carbon border tariffs are ‘a legitimate idea to have on the table’