64 Time November 8/November 15, 2021
of the road in the aftermath of World War II, to do its
part and remain an essential player.
On the road, Kerry has clearly boiled down the U.S.
mission: his country wants to keep the world from sur-
passing 1.5°C of global temperature rise above pre-
industrial levels. Temperatures have already risen 1.1°C,
and scientists say meeting that goal requires dramatic
action right now. The 1.5°C marker has come to repre-
sent the point where we are likely to face the worst ef-
fects of climate change, a reality often assessed in feet
of sea-level rise, days of drought and the cost of storms.
But the now decades-long failure to adequately address
climate change has also placed the multilateral system
and the U.S.’s place in it at risk. If nations don’t come
together, not only do U.S. leadership and democratic
governance suffer, but the resulting disorder—caused
by those storms, droughts and so much more—will also
force a transition to something new.
It’s hard to imagine someone more fitting to defend
multilateralism than Kerry, a Vietnam veteran turned
antiwar activist and son of a diplomat who has served
at the highest levels of the U.S. government for de-
cades. Kerry speaks carefully, not wanting to overstep
his climate mandate, but understands the stakes. “We’re
fighting for everything here,” he says. “It’s not just the
climate—it’s fighting for a reasonable response by gov-
ernance, for a reasonable relationship with our fellow
citizens, or noncitizens, a reasonable relationship with
people in the world.”
Over the past eight months, TIME has followed
Kerry on that mission—first via telephone calls and
virtual events and then, as vaccination became wide-
spread and travel returned, in person on both sides of
the Atlantic. Kerry makes a robust case for the construc-
tive role he, his government and, indeed, good diplo-
macy have played in the lead-up to this year’s climate
conference. But to measure Kerry’s success by the list
of deals and announcements he brings to COP26 would
be premature. The real test will come in the weeks and
months to come—not just for Kerry but for the world.On the late-night train from Geneva to Milan in
late September, long after it has mostly cleared out,
Kerry is taking a break from his briefing book and fol-
lowing each station stop intently, reflecting on the Al-
pine geography and noting with excitement when we
cross the border into Italy. He offers me candy from his
favorite and oft-visited chocolate shop in Geneva.
Kerry is an internationalist when many leaders are
looking inward. He knows where to stop for chocolate
in foreign cities, yes, but he also has a vision of solving
problems through diplomacy and dealmaking. The son
of a foreign service officer, he grew up on both sides of
the Atlantic at a time when the U.S. was working to re-
build Europe, attending boarding school in Switzerland
before returning to the U.S. for high school. “I grew up
very used to other cultures, other countries, other points
of view,” he tells me. “I didn’t view things exclusively
through an American lens.”
From the beginning of his political career, Kerry found
himself drawn to both environmental issues and foreign
affairs—something he attributes to his transatlantic up-
bringing and a mother he says was devoted to green is-
sues. And throughout his career, he has tried to prioritize
climate change even as it remained on the broader po-
litical back burner. In 1992, he traveled to the Rio Earth
Summit, the first U.N. climate meeting, to advocate for
global climate solutions. (He had his first significant con-
versation with his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry on the side-
lines of the meeting, where she was impressed by his sing-
ing in her native Portuguese.) In the Senate, he worked
publicly to build a bipartisan coalition to pass climate