Kerry: ‘Shaming’ Other Countries ‘the Most Powerful Weapon’ We Have in Climate Deal

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: 

TODD: "There’s a lot of pledges, there’s a lot of promises. But there seems to be no mechanism for getting countries to comply other than wagging your finger at them and shaming them. Am I wrong?"
KERRY: "Well, that’s the most powerful weapon in many ways but it’s not the only weapon. In fact, we think more other powerful weapons. President Obama understood — and believe me, he’s been really committed to getting this done and it’s his leadership in America on our own climate action plan that give us credibility here and the president has been able to do that without that enforcement mechanism but by setting policy. Here we set policy. 186 countries came together. Each submitted their own plan for reductions according to their capacities. We have a mandatory legally binding reporting mechanism, chuck, and that reporting mechanism requires people to retool their plans every five years in order to do more than they might be doing and meet the goal. People understand this issue. This is not a question of doing it because it seems nice or politically it’s good. It’s because it’s having a profoundly negative impact on nations. They need to respond and that’s perhaps the most compelling reason of all."