President Biden’s recently appointed climate czar, John Kerry, took a private jet to Iceland in 2019 to receive the Arctic Circle award for climate leadership, Fox News has learned.
Kerry defended his highly polluting ride at the time, calling it “the only choice for someone like me who travels the world to win this battle” in a Fox News interview. The incident had not previously been reported in the American press.
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who led the Arctic Circle Roundtable, criticized Kerry for traveling to the event by private jet, Icelandic outlet RUV reported.
Kerry received the award, which took the form of an iceberg sculpture, because he was “a consistent voice pressuring US authorities to address environmental issues,” the outlet noted.
Icelandic reporter Jóhann Bjarni Kolbeinsson confronted Kerry with his choice of transport during the event and asked, “I understand you came here on a private jet. Is that an ecological way to travel?”
John Kerry speaks at the 2019 ceremony.
(Arctic Circle via YouTube, file)
Kerry responded by claiming this was the only way. “If you offset your CO2 emissions, that’s the only choice for someone like me who travels the world to win this battle,” said Kerry.
“I negotiated the Paris Accords for the United States,” he added, referring to the multilateral climate agreement signed while he was Secretary of State under President Obama.
“I’ve been involved in this fight for years. I’ve negotiated with [Chinese] President Xi to bring President Xi to the table so we could get Paris. And I believe that the time it takes to get anywhere I cannot sail the ocean. I have to fly, meet people and get things done, ”Kerry said, avoiding the fact that he chose a private jet over a commercial flight.
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“But what I’m doing, almost full time,” he continued, “is working to win the fight against climate change, and if I eventually make up for my life and contribute to do this, I’m not going to be put on the defensive.”
It is estimated that private jets emit more than 40 times more carbon per passenger than commercial flights.
It’s unclear how Kerry offset his CO2 emissions, as he claimed, but flight logs indicated that his family’s private jet spent more than 20 hours in the air in the past year – culminating in an estimated 116 tons of CO2.
In comparison, a March 2018 report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that the typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That calculation assumes a car traveling approximately 11,500 miles per year with fuel economy of approximately 22.0 miles per gallon.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
As Fox News noted earlier, the Kerry family owned a private charter company from which the longtime Democrat appeared to be profiting financially. As late as 2013, the financial disclosure of his executive staff showed that Kerry owned “more than $ 1,000,001” in assets for the charter airline Flying Squirrel LLC through his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune.
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Kerry’s financial statements from 2009-2012 also showed that amount. In his 2013 disclosure, the former secretary of state reported between “$ 50,001- $ 100,000” in rent and royalties for the company. That figure was more than $ 1 million in its 2012 form and between $ 100,001- $ 1,000,000 for 2013. Other disclosures showed rental income in excess of $ 1 million for 2011, “$ 100,001- $ 1,000,000” for 2010. and “$ 100,001 – $ 1,000,000” for 2008.
Revelations about Kerry’s outsized carbon footprint came as Democrats considered proposals to reshape the country’s energy economy, with potentially skyrocketing costs to households and individual Americans.
Biden’s climate proposal is estimated to cost at least $ 1.7 trillion. That could grow, however, depending on how Democrats negotiate with him in Congress, where progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been adamant about passing the ambitious Green New Deal.
During the campaign, Biden said he would use the Green New Deal as the framework for his climate plan, although his proposal costs significantly less than other plans that have adopted that framework. Regardless, Biden’s plan focuses on the kind of economic transformation advocated by more left-wing members of his party.
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That included achieving net zero emissions by 2050, which the Heritage Foundation has said would cost the economy millions of jobs, thousands of dollars in lost household income, and erase trillions of the nation’s gross domestic product.
The conservative nonprofit used the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) National Energy Model to predict the impact of high carbon taxes that aim to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Not only did the model crash, it did not get close to the target outlined in the GND. The best Heritage could get was a 58% reduction in emissions achieved through a $ 300 carbon tax – taxes in excess of $ 300 destroyed the EIA model.
It estimated that a reduction of only 58% by 2040 would cost the economy $ 15 trillion in lost gross domestic product and an average of 1.1 million jobs per year. The average family of four would also see a total loss of income of $ 165,000 or nearly $ 8,000 per year.
Within weeks of the seizure of power, the Biden administration had already cost American jobs by revoking the federal permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline. TC Energy, the company that owns the pipeline, warned on the inauguration day that it would “directly lead to the layoffs of thousands of union workers.” Rob Darden, CEO of Distribution Contractors Association (DCA), similarly said that completing the pipeline “would have created 10,000 well-paid jobs in the US unions.”
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., And Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., argue that the cost of inactivity in climate change is unsustainable. According to Sanders, solutions such as infrastructure and investment would also boost the American economy. Biden’s campaign website predicted that his climate response could create 10 million “well-paid jobs”.
Sanders previously warned that the US “would lose $ 34.5 trillion by the end of the century” without action on climate change. He also predicted savings of up to $ 70.4 trillion over 80 years from “averting climate disasters.”