Biden climate envoy Kerry says all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies will work to combat climate change

Longtime Democratic politician John Kerry emerged Wednesday to speak alongside White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and climate czar Gina McCarthy about the administration's ambitious plan to address climate change. 

Kerry — a former senator and Obama administration secretary of state who has largely remained absent from the political scene these last four years — has rejoined his party in Washington to represent the American effort to reduce oil, gas and coal pollution on the world stage. 

During the briefing, Kerry, now White House climate envoy, spelled out why and how, in the administration's view, the threats posed by climate change are issues of national security that must promptly be addressed by U.S. intelligence, defense, and homeland security agencies.

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, said all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies will be involved in commissioning a national intelligence estimate on the security implications of climate change.

Last week, Biden signed an executive order killing the Keystone XL oil pipeline and, with it, a projected thousands of U.S. jobs.

The coal industry, which former President Trump helped protect by rolling back Obama-era energy regulations, also stands to suffer significant job losses under the Biden administration's climate plan.

Kerry on Wednesday suggested that fossil fuel industry workers make "better choices" and become solar power and wind turbine technicians.

"There's a lot of money to be made in the creation of these new jobs in these new sectors," he said, while saying those in the fossil fuel industry were misled by Trump about reviving that sector. 

"Unfortunately, workers have been fed a false narrative, no surprise, for the last four years," Kerry said. "They've been fed that somehow dealing with climate is coming at their expense."

Today's orders out of the White House expand on the president's executive action last week to rejoin the Paris climate agreement.

Federal agencies will now be directed to "eliminate fossil fuel subsidies as consistent with applicable law and identify new opportunities to spur innovation, commercialization, and deployment of clean energy technologies and infrastructure," according to the White House statement.