John Kerry reflects on time as top US climate negotiator and ‘major breakthrough’ in climate talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Time was running out and U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry knew it.

International climate talks in mid-December were stuck with no agreement to phase out oil, gas and coal, fossil fuels that are the root cause of global warming.

The United Nations sponsored conference official end date, a day after Kerry’s 80th birthday, was fast approaching. What’s more, Kerry’s Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, who helped craft past deals with him, announced that he was retiring. Opportunity could be slipping away at the summit known as COP28, being held in Dubai.

“It made me bear down and get to a lot more meetings, one-on-one and otherwise, and frankly dragooned a few other people into the effort to persuade and make the difference,” Kerry recalled during a recent interview with The Associated Press, given ahead of his retirement this week.

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In the heat of negotiations, the energy minister of Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich nation that has long opposed diplomatic attempts to limit fossil fuels,