The US is back in the Paris Agreement. Whats next John Kerry and Al Gore
Transcriber:
Christiana Figueres:
Today, February 19, 2021,
at the beginning of a crucial year
and a crucial decade
for confronting the climate crisis,
the United States rejoins
the Paris Climate Agreement
after four years of absence.
Unanimously adopted by 195 nations,
the Paris Agreement
came into force in 2016,
establishing targets and mechanisms
to lead the global economy
to a zero-emissions future.
It was one of the most extraordinary
examples of multilateralism ever,
and one which I had
the privilege to coordinate.
One year later,
the United States withdrew.
The Biden-Harris administration
is now bringing the United States back
and has expressed strong commitment
to responsible climate action.
The two men you are about to see
both played essential roles
in birthing the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Former Vice President Al Gore,
a lifelong climate expert,
made key contributions
to the diplomatic process.
John Kerry was the US Secretary of State
and head of the US delegation.
With his granddaughter sitting on his lap,
he signed the Paris Agreement
on behalf of the United States.
He is now the US
Special Envoy for Climate.
TED Countdown has invited Al Gore
to interview John Kerry
as he begins his new role.
Over to both of them.
Al Gore: Well, thank you, Christiana,
and John Kerry, thank you so much
for doing this interview.
I have to say on a personal basis,
I was just absolutely thrilled
when President Biden,
then president-elect,
announced you were going to be taking on
this incredibly important role.
And thank you for doing it.
Let me just start by welcoming you
to TED Countdown and asking you,
how are you feeling as you step back
into the middle of this issue
that has been close
to your heart for so long?
John Kerry: Well, I feel safer
being here with you.
I honestly, I feel
very energized, very focused.
I think it’s a privilege
to be able to take on this task.
And as you know better than anybody,
it’s going to take everybody
coming together.
There’s going to have to be
a massive movement of people
to do what we have to do.
So I feel privileged to be part of it,
and I’m honored to be here with you
on this important day.
AG: Well, it’s been a privilege
to be able to work with a dear friend
for so long on this crisis.
And, of course, on this historic day,
when the United States
now formally and legally rejoins
the Paris Agreement,
we have to acknowledge
that the world is lagging behind
the pace of change needed
to successfully confront
the climate crisis,
because even if all countries
kept the commitments
made under the Paris Agreement –
and I watched you sign it,
you had your grandchild with you –
I was there at the U.N,
that was an inspiring moment,
you signed on behalf of the United States,
but even if all of those pledges were kept
they’re not strong enough to keep
the global temperature increase
well below two degrees
or below 1.5 degrees,
and emissions are still rising.
So what needs to happen
here in the US and globally
in order to accelerate the pace of change?
JK: Well, Al, you’re absolutely correct.
It’s a very significant day,
a day that never had to happen,
America returning to this agreement.
It is so sad that our previous president,
without any scientific basis,
without any legitimate economic rationale,
decided to pull America out.
And it hurt us and it hurt the world.
Now we have an opportunity
to try to make that up.
And I approach that job
with a lot of humility
for the agony of the last four years
of not moving faster.
But we have to simply up
our ambition on a global basis.
United States is 15 percent
of all the emissions.
China is 30 percent.
EU is somewhere around 14, 11,
depends who you talk to.
And India is about seven.
So you add all those together,
just four entities,
and you’ve got well over 60 percent
of all the emissions in the world.
And yet none of those nations
are at this moment doing enough
to be able to get done
what has to be done,
let alone many others,
at lower levels of emission.
It’s going to take all of us.
Even if tomorrow China went to zero,
or the United States went to zero,
you know full well, Al,
we’re still not going to get there.
We all have to be reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
We have to do it much more rapidly.
So the meeting in Glasgow
rises in its importance.
You and I, we’ve been to these meetings
since way back in the beginning
of the ’90s with Rio
and even before, some of them
parliamentary meetings.
And we’re at this most critical moment
where we have a capacity to define
the decade of the ’20s,
which will really make or break us
in our ability to get to a 2050
net zero carbon economy.
And so we all have to raise our ambition.
That means coal has got
to phase down faster.
It means we’ve got to deploy renewables,
all forms of alternative, renewable,
sustainable energy.
We’ve got to push the curve
of discovery intensely.
Whether we get to hydrogen
economy or battery storage
or any number of technologies,
we are going to have to have
an all-of-the-above approach
to getting where we need to go
to meet the target in this next 10 years.
And I think Glasgow has to not only
have countries come and raise ambition,
but those countries
are going to have to define
in real terms,
what their road map is
for the next 10 years,
then the next 30 years,
so that we’re really talking a reality
that we’ve never been able
to completely assemble
at any of these meetings thus far.
AG: Well, hearing you talk, John,
just highlights how painful it’s been
for the US to be absent
from the international effort
for the last four years,
and again, it makes me so happy
President Biden has brought us back
into the Paris Agreement.
After this four year hiatus,
how are you personally,
as our Climate Envoy,
planning to approach
re-entry into the conversation?
I know you’ve already started it,
but is there anything tricky about that?
Or I guess everything is tricky about it,
but how are you planning to do it?
JK: Well, I’m planning, first of all,
to do it with humility,
because I think it’s not appropriate
for the United States to leap back in
and start telling everybody
what has to happen.
We have to listen.
We have to work very, very closely
with other countries,
many of whom have been carrying the load
for the last four years
in the absence of the United States.
I don’t think we come in, Al,
I want to emphasize this –
I don’t believe we come to the table
with our heads hanging down
on behalf of many of our own efforts,
because, as you know,
President Obama worked very hard
and we all did,
together with you and others,
to get the Paris Agreement.
And we also have 38 states in America
that have passed renewable portfolio laws.
And during the four years
of Trump being out,
the governors of those 38 states,
Republican and Democrat alike,
continued to push forward
and we’re still in movement.
And more than a thousand mayors,
the mayors of our biggest
cities in America,
all have forged ahead.
So it’s not a totally, abjectly miserable
story by the United States.
I think we can come back
and earn our credibility
by stepping up in the next month or two
with a strong national
determined contribution.
We’re going to have a summit on April, 22.
That summit will bring together the major
emitting nations of the world again.
And because, as you recall in Paris,
a number of nations felt
left out of the conversation.
The island states, some of the poorer
nations, Bangladesh, others.
And so we’re going to bring
those stakeholders to the table,
as well as the big emitters
and developed countries,
so that they can be heard from the get-go.
And as we head on into Glasgow,
hopefully we’ll be building
a bigger momentum
and we’ll have a larger consensus.
And that’s our goal –
have the summit, raise ambition,
announce our national
determined contribution,
begin to break ground
on entirely new initiatives,
build towards the biodiversity
convention in China,
even though we’re not a party,
we want to be helpful,
and then go into the G7,
the G20, the UNGA,
the meeting of the United
Nations in the fall,
reconvene and reenergize,
going for the last six weeks into Glasgow.
In my judgment, Glasgow,
and you’d know this full well,
I think Glasgow is the last,
best hope we have
for our nations
to really set us on that path.
And so, you know, one key is,
as I said, raising ambition.
The other is defining
how you’re going to get there,
and then the third is finance.
We’ve got to bring an unprecedented
global finance plan to the table.
And I think we’re already working
with private sector entities.
I believe there’s a way
to do that in a very exciting way.
AG: Well, that’s encouraging,
and I’m going to come back to that
in just a moment.
But I’m glad you made those points
about state and local governments
actually moving forward
during the last four years.
A lot of US private
companies have as well.
And already I’m extremely encouraged
by the suite of executive actions
that President Biden has already taken
during his first weeks in office.
And there’s more to come.
There’s also a push for legislative action
to invest in the fantastic
new opportunities
in clean energy,
electric vehicles and more.
Yet you and I have both seen
the difficulties
of this approach in the past.
How can we use all of this activity
to well and truly convince the world
that America is genuinely back
to being part of the solution?
I know we are.
You know we are,
but we’ve got to really restore
that confidence.
I think your appointment
went a long way to doing that.
But what else can we do to gain back
the world’s confidence?
JK: Well, we have to be honest
and forthright and direct
about the things
that we’re prepared to do.
And they have to be things
we’re really going to do.
We just held a meeting a few days ago
with all of the domestic entities
that President Biden
has ordered to come to the table
and be part of this effort.
This is an all-of-government effort now.
So we will have the Energy Department,
the Homeland Security Department,
the Defense Department, the Treasury.
I mean, Janet Yellen was there
talking about how she’s going to work
and we’re going to work together to try
to mobilize some of the finance.
So I think, you know,
we’re not going to convince anybody
by just saying it.
Nor should we.
We have to do it.
And I think the actions
that we put together
shortly after President Biden
achieves the COVID legislation here,
he will almost immediately
introduce the rebuild effort,
the infrastructure components,
and those will be very much engaged
in building out America’s grid capacity,
doing things that we
should have done years ago
to facilitate the transmission
of electricity
from one part of the country to another,
whether it’s renewable or otherwise.
We just don’t have that ability now.
We have a queue of backed up projects
sitting in one of our regulatory agencies
which have got to be broken free.
And by creating this
all-of-government effort, Al,
our hope is we’re really
going to be able to do that.
The other thing that we’re doing is
I’m reaching out, very rapidly,
to colleagues all around the world.
We’ve had meetings already,
discussions with India,
with Latin American countries,
with European countries,
with the European Commission and others.
And we’re going to try to build
as much energy and momentum as possible
towards these various benchmarks
that I’ve talked about.
And I mean, the proof
will be in the pudding.
We’re going to have to show people
that we’ve got a strong NDC,
we’re actually implementing,
we’re passing legislation,
and we’re moving forward
in a collegiate manner
with other countries around the world.
For instance, I’ve talked to Australia,
we had a very good conversation.
Australia has had some
differences with us.
We’ve not been able to get
on the same page completely.
That was one of the problems in Madrid,
as you recall, together with Brazil.
Well, I’ve reached out to Brazil already,
we’re starting to work on that.
My hope is that we can build
some new coalitions and approach this,
hopefully in a new way.
AG: Well, that’s exciting,
and I do agree with your statement earlier
that the COP26 conference
in Glasgow this fall
may be the world’s last, best chance,
I like your phrase there.
From your perspective,
what would you list as the priorities
for ensuring that this Glasgow
conference is a success?
JK: I think that perhaps one
of the single most important things,
which is why we’re focused
on this summit of ours,
is to get the 17 nations,
that produced the vast
majority of emissions,
on the same page of committing
to 2050 net zero,
committing to this decade,
having a road map
that is going to lay down
how they are going to accelerate
the reduction of emissions
in a way that keeps
1.5 degrees as a floor alive
and also in a way that guarantees
that we are seeing the road map
to get to net zero.
I will personally
be dissatisfied, disappointed
if for our children’s sake
and our grandkids sake
we can’t say that when these adults came
together to make this kind of a decision,
we didn’t actually make it.
We’ve got to make it.
And I think if we can show people
we’re actually on the road,
I think you believe this
as much as I do,
that –
I mean, you’re far more knowledgeable
than I am about some of the technologies
and you’ve helped break ground
on some of them.
The pace at which we are now
beginning to accelerate,
I mean, the reduction in cost of solar,
the movement in storage
and other kinds of things,
I’m convinced we’re going to find
one breakthrough or another.
I don’t know what it’s going to be,
but I do know that when we push the curve
and we put the resources to work,
the innovative creative capacity
of humankind is such
that we have an ability
to surprise ourselves.
We’ve always done it.
When we went to the Moon
in this incredible backdrop behind you.
And that’s exactly what we did.
And people today use products
in everyday household use
that came out of that quest
that you never would have anticipated.
That’s what’s going to happen now.
We can move faster to electric vehicles.
No question in my mind,
we could absolutely phase down
coal-fired emissions
faster than we are in a plan to do it.
So the available choices are there.
The test is going to be whether we create
the energy and momentum
necessary to actually
get those choices made.
AG: One of the big challenges
is one you referred to earlier on finance.
Wealthy countries have promised
financial assistance
to the less wealthy countries
to help them out with cutting emissions
and to help them cope with the impacts
of the climate crisis.
But of course, we need to continue
to work to meet this commitment,
especially as countries around the world
rebuild their economies
in the wake of this pandemic.
What are some of the most effective ways
in which the wealthier
countries can help those
that don’t have as many resources,
and why is this so important
for the world to move forward?
JK: Let me answer the last part first.
It’s so important
because it’s the only way
we’re going to get there.
I don’t believe that any government
has either the money or the inclination
to be able to do what’s necessary here.
I believe the private sector,
particularly driven
by venture capital investment,
by the quest to be able
to create a product
that then can help create wealth
and actually provide
a benefit to humankind
drives a lot of things
that we’ve done all through history.
And I don’t think
it’ll be any different now.
I think the question is,
can we pull together enough nations
to leverage a uniform approach
to the judgment
about the kinds of investments
that are being made.
And I believe that if we can
standardize to some degree,
with disclosure requirements,
which Janet Yellen is now
seized of that issue,
and Europe, there are folks
working on that
and European Commission elsewhere,
if we could actually find a way
to come together
and harmonize some of those definitions
and the marketplace begins to make
those judgments as they qualify risk,
looking way out,
risk, because of climate crisis
for investing is very, very real.
And we all understand that.
We spent 265 billion dollars
in America two years ago
just cleaning up after three storms,
Maria, Harvey and Irma.
And it’s crazy.
You spend 265 billion
to clean up after the storms,
but we can’t put 100 billion together
for the Green Climate Fund.
That’s what this year has to be about.
We’ve got to break that cycle.
And I think business,
I’m convinced of this,
a lot of people will doubt me and say,
have I lost my mind,
but I’m convinced the private sector
is going to be critical,
if not the key to helping
to make this happen.
And that will leverage other money.
I’ve talked to the IMF,
we’ll be talking with the World Bank,
we’re going to try to bring our own
Finance Development
Corporation in America.
All of these things can help
leverage investment
into the sectors that can make
the greatest difference
to the rapid reduction
of greenhouse gases.
And I think people
are going to get very excited
about where this money is going to go
and how much it is going to be.
And my hope is in a matter of weeks
to be in a position
to make a couple of announcements
with respect to that
that could be helpful in building
some of this momentum.
AG: Well, that’s great.
It sounds like some major news
coming in a couple of weeks
and just one example you used,
the point about businessmen.
I have a friend in Australia,
Mike Cannon-Brookes,
building a long undersea cable
from the northern territories of Australia
to take renewable
electricity to Singapore.
You have made the point
about the need for the US
to approach this with humility
a number of times.
In that spirit,
what lessons can a country like ours learn
from some of the lower income nations
that are already beginning
to tackle climate change?
JK: Well, I think one
of the most important things, Al,
is to make sure that central
to this transformation,
to this transition
to the new energy economy,
central to it is environmental justice,
is that we don’t leave people behind,
that we’re not making whole communities
the recipients of the downside
of some particular choice,
that the diesel trucks, for instance,
aren’t all being routed through
a particular low income community
that doesn’t have the ability
to make a different political decision.
I think it is vital
for the developed world
to recognize that there are nations,
138 nations or more,
way below one percent
in terms of emissions.
And they’re looking around some of them,
like Tommy Remengesau,
the president of Palau,
who no longer can consider adaptation,
he’s got to figure out
where his people are going to go live,
as do other very low-lying
areas in the ocean.
So that impact on people
is really not known
by the vast majority of people
who live pretty good lives
in a lot of countries in the world.
And we have a responsibility to make sure
that we’re learning
the lesson of their lives
and of their hopes and aspirations here.
AG: Couldn’t agree more.
And here in the US,
if we had paid more attention
to the differential impact on Black,
Brown and Indigenous communities,
we would have had a better early warning
of what the whole country was facing.
But let me shift subjects
and ask you about China.
I know that you,
as you are close friends with Xie Zhenhua,
as I have been over the years,
and I was very happy
when he was brought out of retirement
to play the lead role for them.
But the US is now in the middle
of a somewhat contentious
relationship with China.
But successfully solving
the climate crisis
is going to require collaboration
between the US and China,
we’re the two biggest emitters
and the two biggest economies.
How can this collaboration
be shaped, in your view?
I know you played a role,
as Joe Biden did before
the Paris Agreement,
in getting our two countries together.
Can we do that again?
JK: I hope so.
I really do hope so, Al.
As you just said, if we can –
if we don’t get China
to be cooperating and partnering
with the rest of the world on this,
we don’t solve the problem.
And we unfortunately,
we see too much investment
in China right now in coal still.
We’ve had some conversations about it.
I was on a panel with Xie Zhenhua
several months before the election
by the University of California,
and we had a very
constructive conversation.
My hope is that that
will continue and can continue
and that China will be
just as constructive, if not more so,
in this endeavor than they were in 2013
as we began the process
to build up to Paris.
AG: Well, that relationship
is absolutely crucial.
But in order to cover all the ground
I want to cover here,
let me shift again and ask you,
what role do you expect
that big corporations
and also smaller businesses will play
in moving this green transition forward?
JK: I think they’re the biggest
single players in it.
I mean, governments are important
and governments can and have made
a difference with tax credits.
For instance, our solar tax credit
made an enormous difference
and it will make one going forward.
And even in the middle of COVID,
we’ve been able to hold on to that.
But we need to grow
those kinds of efforts.
But in the end,
it’s not going to be government cash
that makes this happen.
It’s going to be the private sector
investment that is coming in
because it’s the right thing to do,
because it’s also smart investing.
And the truth is, you can talk to many –
and you have, you’re one
of the investors actually, Al –
you and others have proven
that you can invest in this sector
of dealing with climate
or environment or sustainability,
whether it’s ESG or it’s pure climate.
There are ways to have
a good return on money.
And during the last couple of years,
we had something like,
13 to 17 trillion dollars
sitting in parked banking
situations around the world
in net negative interest.
In other words, they were paying
for the privilege of sitting there,
not invested in something.
And so I think there’s just
a massive opportunity here.
And most of the CEOs
I am talking to, at least now,
are increasingly aware of the potential
of these alternatives.
And you were in early,
I don’t know if you invested in it or not,
but I know you’re involved
with Tesla or have been.
Tesla is the most highly valued automobile
company in the world.
And it only makes one thing: electric car.
If that isn’t a message to people,
I don’t know what is.
AG: I wish I had invested in Tesla, John,
but I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk
and what he’s doing.
I’m also a huge fan of Greta Thunberg.
And I’m just curious
what you think in practical terms
is the real impact for change
coming from these youth movements
like Fridays for the Future?
JK: I think it’s been gigantic
and spectacular
and in the best traditions
of what young people do
and have done historically.
I mean, as you recall, in America,
at least in the 1960s,
it was young people who drove
the environment movement,
the peace movement, the women’s movement,
the civil rights movement,
and they were willing to put
their lives on the line.
And Greta has been just unbelievable.
And in the way in which
she has held adults accountable
and it has created
this wonderful movement.
I’ve met so many young people,
many of whom have worked
in one fashion or another with me
in the last few years,
who were brought to it
from Fridays for the Future,
from the Sunrise Movement, or, you know,
it’s all that focused youthful
idealism and energy
and it demands to be heard.
And I think all of us, I mean,
we should be ashamed of ourselves
that we have to have people
who were then 16 or 15
not going to school to get our attention.
I mean, what the hell is the matter
with adult leadership?
That’s not leadership at all.
So I salute her and all the young people
who put themselves on the line.
But I invite them, you know,
it’s not enough.
You’ve got to then –
and I said this during
the course of the election
where I hope we created
a lot of new voters.
And I think environment,
specifically climate crisis,
became a real voting issue this year,
just as it was back in 1970
when we created the EPA
and the Clean Air Act
and a host of things.
And it proves that that kind
of activism is necessary.
And I hope we’re going to keep
young people at the table here
and finish the job, that’s the key now.
AG: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.
And another big movement
that’s having an impact
is the environmental justice movement.
You referred to it earlier.
And I’m so glad that President Biden
is putting environmental justice
at the heart of his climate agenda.
It might be good if I could ask
you to just take a moment
and tell people why that is such
an important part of this issue.
JK: Well, I think it’s important part
of this issue for many reasons,
the most basic is just moral,
you know, what is morally right.
And how do you redress a wrong
that has for too many years
held people back,
killed people by virtue
of disease or other things,
and resulted in a basic inequality
and unfairness in society.
And I think you share
a feeling, as I do, Al,
that the fabric of a nation
is built around certain
organizational principles.
And if you’re holding yourselves out
as a nation to be one thing,
i.e. equal opportunity and fairness
and all people created equal,
and equal rights and so forth,
if that’s what you hold out there
and it isn’t there,
eventually you get such a cynicism
and such a backlash
built up into your society
that it doesn’t hold together.
To some degree, that is what we’re seeing
around the world today,
is this nationalistic populism
that is driven by this
heightened inequality
that has come through globalization
that has mostly enriched
already fairly well-off folks.
And so if it’s the upper one percent
that’s getting all the benefits
and the rest of the world struggling
to survive and they also have COVID,
and then you tell them we’ve got to do
this or that in terms of climate,
you’re walking on very thin ice
in terms of that sacred relationship
between government
and the people who are governed.
It’s not just an American phenomenon.
You see it in Europe.
You see it in alternative movements
in various countries.
And I think it is the great task
of our generation
not only to deal with climate,
but to restore a sense of fairness
to our economies, to our societies,
to our world.
And that is part of this battle, I think.
AG: Yeah, I agree.
And another common source of opposition
to what governments are doing now
has to do with the fear,
both in the US and elsewhere,
on the part of some,
that jobs might be lost
in this transition toward a green economy.
You and I both know
that there are a lot of jobs
that can be created.
But let me put the question to you.
How can we approach this green transition
in a way that lifts everyone up?
JK: That is one of the most important
things that we need to do, Al.
And we can’t lie to people.
We can’t say that some of the dislocation
doesn’t mean that a job that exists today
might not be the same job in the future
and that that person has to go
through a process of getting there.
And we need to make certain
that nobody’s abandoned.
We need to make certain
that there are real mechanisms in place
to help folks be able to transition.
And I just spoke the other day
with Richie Trumka,
the head of the American
Federation of Labor,
and he’s been very focused on this.
And we agreed to try to work through
how do we integrate that
into this transitional process
so that we’re guaranteeing
that you don’t abandon people.
Now, one of the things we need to do
is go to the places
where there have been changes
and there will be change.
Southeastern Ohio,
Kentucky, West Virginia.
You know, if the marketplace
is making the decision and it’s –
by the way, it’s not government policy,
it is the marketplace that has decided,
in America at least,
not to be building a new coal-fired plant.
So where does that miner,
or where does that person
who worked in that supply chain go?
We have to make sure
that the new companies,
that the new jobs are actually
going into those communities
that the coal community,
the coal country,
as we call it, in America,
is actually being immediately and directly
and realistically addressed in this
to make sure that people
are not abandoned and left behind.
That is possible. That is doable.
Historically, unfortunately,
there have been too many words
and not enough actual –
not enough actually
implementation and process.
I think that can change.
And I’m going to do
everything possible in my ability
to make sure that we do change it.
AG: Well, that’s great.
And another part of the context
within which you are taking on
this enormous challenge
is the COVID pandemic,
which has exposed the cost of ignoring
pre-existing systemic risks,
inequalities and sustainability.
And now as we start to come
out of this pandemic,
how can we avoid sleepwalking
back into old habits?
JK: Boy, that’s probably
the toughest of all.
I mean, there’s a natural proclivity
for people sometimes
to just choose the easiest way.
And clearly, some people
already have and will resort to that.
I think the key will be
in President Biden’s proposal
for the build back,
which will actually fight hard to direct
funds to the investments
and to the sectors where we want to see
a responsible build back.
There’s another aspect,
and I think that can be done, Al,
I really feel that.
For instance,
someone who’s making a car today
in South Carolina,
where BMW has plants,
and just to pick one place or Detroit,
GM is obviously going to make this shift,
they just announced it.
The people building the car today
are still going to have to put
wheels on a car, build the car,
put the seats in, do everything else.
It’s just that instead
of an internal combustion engine,
they can be quickly trained to be able
to put the platform in for the batteries
and the engines themselves, etc,
that will drive the car, the motors,
that’s one way of dealing.
Others are that there’s new
work in some ways.
We have to lay transmission
lines in America.
We do not have a grid
in the United States, as you know.
We have at east coast, west coast.
Texas has its own grid,
north part of America,
but there’s a huge hole in the country.
You can’t send energy efficiently
from one place to another.
We could lower prices for people
and create more jobs
in the build-out of all
of that kind of new infrastructure.
Not to mention the things
that you and I, you know,
there are going to be things
that we can’t name today,
some negative-emissions technology
that’s going to grab CO2
out of the atmosphere
and do something with it,
like in Iceland,
where they put it into the rock,
mix it with liquid
and it turns into stone.
I mean, there are all kinds
of different things people are exploring.
Those are new jobs.
AG: I just want to say,
since we’ve come to the end
of our time for this conversation,
thank you again for taking on
this crucial challenge
on behalf of the United States of America
and enabling the US to restore
its traditional role
in trying to bring the world together.
And I know that everybody watching
and listening to this conversation
sends you their best wishes and hopes
for all the success possible
in this new work, John.
Thank you so much
for joining TED Countdown,
and we wish you the very best.
JK: Can I reciprocate for a minute?
First of all, I want to thank you
for your extraordinary
leadership for years,
I can remember when you were
leading us in the Senate on this,
and you’ve done so much since.
And I am personally delighted
to be working with you on this again
and look forward to the next months
and together with a lot of other folks.
Let’s get this done.