Secretary Of State Is Climate Advocate

Businesses and activists who support international action on climate change are pinning their hopes on new Secretary of State John F. Kerry. A senator from Massachusetts for 28 years before his Senate colleagues confirmed him 94 to 3 to the nation’s top diplomacy slot last week, Kerry has long been a stalwart advocate on climate-change issues. “No member of Congress has devoted more energy over the past two decades to strengthening the international effort against climate change,” says Eileen Claussen, president of the Center for Climate & Energy Solutions, a nonprofit organization. As secretary of state, Kerry is expected to influence the U.S. stance at negotiations on a new global treaty to combat climate change, a pact that is supposed to be completed by 2015 and include limits for all major emitters of greenhouse gases. He will also make the formal decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, some 1,700 miles to refineries in Texas.