The war exacerbates the effects of climate change, says Kerry.

BRUSSELS – The war in Ukraine is exacerbating the painful effects of climate change, causing serious damage not only in Ukraine, but also wider unrest, including Africa and South Asia, said John F. Kerry, the United States’ special presidential envoy . for the climate.

The war shows how “climate change is a threat multiplier,” Kerry said in an interview Wednesday.

When millions of people are forced to move for survival, whether in Syria, Sudan or Ukraine, “that is a cause of enormous instability,” he said. And like climate change, the war has a significant effect on strategic, health and food security, as well as global energy.

“That’s a pretty big group of real threats that we’re already seeing playing out around the world in certain ways,” he said.

In Ukraine, Mr Kerry said, the Russian military “has not shown any restraint with regard to the lives of civilians and the consequences of using certain types of weapons or cutting certain supplies or dominating certain facilities”.

The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine this month, with the intense flooding it caused, “has disrupted people in a similar way to the floods in Pakistan, and has had a profound effect on people’s health and ability to move, to get the hospitals to work,” he said.

Mr Kerry, a former secretary of state and presidential candidate, also referred to a conference to be held in London on Wednesday on the reconstruction of Ukraine. Once the war is over, he said, “that reconstruction will also involve serious land reclamation” for agriculture. This is not least because the reduced grain supply from Ukraine, and the resulting higher prices, have had a profound effect on Africa and the so-called Global South.

War and climate change are forcing many people to move, “because they feel like they can’t live where they are, and they’re willing to fight for access to a place where they can live,” Kerry said. The number of people taking on dangerous and overloaded boats — such as the one that claimed hundreds of lives when it sank off the coast of Greece last week — will only increase with climate change, he said.

The world needs to move faster to reduce carbon emissions, he said, though noting that China and India, which together produce nearly 40 percent of current global carbon emissions, are now moving at a rapid pace toward renewable energy.

Mr Kerry also defended the US Inflation Reduction Act – which many Europeans see as a series of unfair subsidies to lure European industry – as a crucial step towards better climate policies in the United States, one of the world’s largest emitters of carbon.

“Europe must not ignore the reality” of the mutual benefits that US action can bring in terms of new technologies and reduced carbon emissions, he said, pointing to the Biden administration’s pledge to cut the country’s emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030. percent from 2005 levels.

“We are doing everything we can to be a good player on the global stage and deliver on a 50 percent reduction, and that requires us to drive certain technologies at home,” said Mr. Kerry. “And we encourage others to do exactly the same.”

Mr Kerry was in Brussels to meet Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s foreign policy chief; Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General; and Frans Timmermans, Head of Climate and Executive Vice-President of the European Commission.

In a joint statement, they said that “Climate change and environmental degradation pose an existential threat to the planet, as well as having immediate, direct and increasing negative implications for security and defense.”