Screencap via France 24/YouTube
The State Department is formally removing the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, the office former president Joe Biden created and appointed John Kerry to lead as part of his aggressive agenda to combat global warming, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. [emphasis, links added]
In a statement to the Free Beacon, a senior State Department official confirmed the office has been shuttered, noting that its mission did not align with the Trump administration’s agenda.
Web pages for both the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and the State Department’s initiatives relating to the environment were recently deleted.
“This climate office has long been captured by ideology instead of common-sense policy. The new chapter of the State Department will not include this office,” the official told the Free Beacon. “This is part of a broader effort to empower regional bureaus and embassies to effectively carry out diplomacy.”
The action is part of a broader effort the sprawling agency announced Tuesday morning to streamline its operations, save taxpayers money, and ensure it is capable of delivering on President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda.
“In its current form, the department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, adding that the agency has become “beholden to radical political ideology.”
And it signals the Trump administration’s continued departure from the Biden-era approach to foreign policy that made climate change a centerpiece of its engagements with foreign nations.
In one of his first actions leading the State Department, for example, Rubio initiated the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which he said undercut the nation’s intention to become the world’s most dominant energy producer.
“The Trump Administration is focused on reducing the everyday cost of living for the American worker, not apologizing to foreign governments for unleashing America’s energy dominance,” a senior White House official told the Free Beacon.
Overall, the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate was given an annual budget of nearly $17 million and a staff of about 30 officials during the Biden administration, according to documents obtained by watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust.
In naming Kerry the first-ever special presidential envoy for climate, Biden gave him a seat on both the White House cabinet and National Security Council, and empowered him to spearhead international negotiations, engage directly with foreign heads of state, and lead American delegations at numerous global climate conferences.
Kerry, who served in the role for three years between January 2021 and early 2024, used the position to wage an all-out assault on fossil fuels and aggressively push a transition to green alternatives like solar panels. Kerry also targeted the agricultural industry for its carbon footprint, leading to calls from dozens of lawmakers for Biden and then-agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack to disavow the comments.
Read rest at Free Beacon
