Latte-sipping US climate envoy John Kerry urges Australian action on fossil fuels

Sipping a latte aboard Twiggy Forrest’s Green Pioneer, US climate envoy John Kerry said the nation’s coal, oil and gas has to be ‘largely’ phased out.

John Kerry said the next few days’ COP28 negotiaitions would be ‘absolutely critical’. Picture: Getty Images

US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry has told The Australian newspaper that Australia has to “largely, but not entirely” phase out fossil fuels.

Mr Kerry was onboard the Green Pioneer, Andrew Forrest’s converted ammonia-fuelled ship on Friday night, where the two men fist-bumped to celebrate the successful prototype conversion of an industrial ship to run on a greener energy supply than the industry standard filthy heavy fuel oil.

Mr Kerry, ever the politician, told The Australian that Australia had to begin the phase-out of fossil fuels “largely, but not entirely because we can’t get to our goals (of limiting global warming to 1.5C) without that’’.

The US is part of the umbrella group of countries chaired by Australian climate minister Chris Bowen which – along with Norway, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, Ukraine, and Israel – will present its views to the COP28 president in the coming days in Dubai.

Andrew Forrest and John Kerry aboard the Green Pioneer. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

Queensland Deputy Premier Stephen Miles and former NSW energy minister Matt Kean among the guests. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

Mr Kerry’s diplomatic response about fossil fuels is an acknowledgment that the demand for Australia to begin an immediate phase-out of fossil fuels – and eliminate government subsidies which underpin the industries – would be an economic and political shock to the nation.

But he appears to also support Mr Bowen’s plans for “stronger language’’ in the major COP28 document, the global stocktake, where the issue of fossil fuels – and whether the entire industry and its heavy subsidies should be phased out or phased down – will be centrestage of country debates over the next three days.

Mr Kerry was drinking a latte coffee as he inspected the ship on Friday night, while hundreds of guests enjoyed champagne and caviar canapes.

He reminisced about being a deckhand on board a US navy vessel before he was given command of a gunboat in the Vietnam War.

Mr Kerry said: “The minute I walk on a ship like this it kind of gets the blood going, being on ships and part of the sea and the ocean, there is something special about all of that. Listen to the noise, there is always something going on.’’

Mr Kerry said the Green Pioneer was “really exciting” because “most ships don’t have their innards on deck’’ referring to the labyrinth of pipes snaking across the deck to the engine room. Mr Forrest’s company, Fortescue, converted the ship in just four months to have two of its four engines capable of running on ammonia.

“This is an example of what Andrew Forrest’s imagination can conjure up, congratulations, it’s really extraordinary,” Mr Kerry said, adding “Andrew Forrest is the world’s greatest disrupter and I love it, it is exactly what we need and the only way we can keep 12.5C alive is by moving much more rapidly.”

The next few days of top-level negotiations would be “absolutely critical, without any question whatsoever”.

Mr Kerry, 79, said scientists had shown the world was on the brink of five tipping points.

“We do know there is this thing called irreversibility and it you go beyond them you are really are out the door.’’

He said: “People who cast it off, say ‘Oh well, we back Ukraine and we have got Gaza’, well yes we do, but we are perfectly capable of doing more than one thing at the same time, particularly when what we have to do has so many benefits for the world.

“We have to be able to choose better than what some people are asking us to choose today.”