John Kerry: Fighting climate change could entail 'bigger economic transformation' than industrial revolution
Biden's climate envoy says there's 'a massive amount of money to be made'
U.S. Special Envoy on Climate John Kerry predicted this week that to address climate change, the world could undergo an enormous economic transformation on the scale of the industrial revolution.
"The fact is we're looking at the creation of the largest market in the history of the world," he said during an event with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on Monday.
"This will be a bigger economic transformation that is right there at our disposal – bigger than the industrial revolution if we will start to seize it, and there are millions of jobs to be created."
He added that "there is a massive amount of money to be made because there are 4.5 to 5 billion energy users in the world today."
Kerry's comments reflected longstanding arguments among advocates like himself. While conservatives have predicted mass economic casualties in the war against climate change, liberals tend to portray it as an opportunity for economic change.
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In recent years, Democrats have proposed carbon taxes and sweeping infrastructure packages that would increase federal investment in the nation's energy system. One of those was the Green New Deal, which conservatives have warned would force the country into a costly and dramatic change.
The conservative Heritage Foundation has said the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 would cost the economy millions of jobs, thousands of dollars in lost household income, and trillions erased from the nation's gross domestic product.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., maintain that the cost of inaction on climate change is unsustainable. According to Sanders, solutions like infrastructure and investment would boost the U.S. economy as well. Biden's campaign website predicted his climate response could create 10 million "well-paying jobs."
Sanders previously warned that without action on climate change, the U.S. would "lose $34.5 trillion by the end of the century." He also predicted savings as high as $70.4 trillion over 80 years by "averting climate catastrophe."
It's unclear, however, how beneficial climate investments would be to the United States, which would lose its energy dominance in the shift to renewables.
Achieving the Biden administration's and other world leaders' climate goals would entail dramatic energy transitions that would greatly empower Chinese industry, the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicated in May.
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While the U.S. and Russia constituted the majority of oil and natural gas extraction as well as oil refining, they weren't major players in the extraction and mining of various minerals needed for more alternative energy, the report found.
Data from 2019 showed that China is responsible for roughly 90% of processing for the world's rare earth (REE) minerals, 40% for copper, 35% for nickel, more than 60% for cobalt, and nearly 60% for lithium. Each of those will see a huge spike in demand if the world wants to reach goals outlined by Biden and others.