Key facts
- Kerry said Trump is the biggest loser for scrapping climate action and ceding clean energy to China.
- The White House official said the summit rejects reality by failing to acknowledge extremist climate policies.
- The administration sent no delegation to Cop31 in Antalya, Turkey, the White House confirmed.
- Trump said on Monday he would not approve wind turbines because they are a major loser.
- Kerry said Republicans eliminated most of the clean energy tax breaks passed under Biden.
John Kerry, a former US secretary of state, told the Guardian at the Cop31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, on November 12, 2026, that Donald Trump is the biggest loser we have seen in a long time for scrapping action on climate change and ceding the clean energy race to China. Kerry said Trump was missing the competitiveness with China and the marketplace for goods that could be produced in the United States.
The Trump administration sent no delegation to the annual UN climate talks, which started on Monday, unlike almost all other countries. A White House official said the summit rejects reality by failing to acknowledge that extremist climate policies are destroying countries around the world, and confirmed the administration would not send anyone to Cop31.
Trump, who has called climate science a hoax, said on Monday he would not approve wind turbines because wind turbines are a major loser, speaking about potential legislation that would make it easier to build new energy projects. Under Biden, the US passed sweeping climate legislation that gave tax breaks for clean energy and electric vehicle manufacturing; Republicans eliminated most of this support, with Trump instead imposing tariffs on various goods and pouring public money into propping up struggling coal-fired power plants.
Kerry said Trump declared he wanted to beat China and then walked away from the battlefield, taking America out of the sector. He said politicians should talk differently about the climate crisis to engage the public, and that concerns about global heating overlapped with alarm over rising energy costs and drove voters to the Democrats in the recent US midterm elections.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, told countries at Cop that it was long past time to phase out fossil fuel use. Greta Thunberg, who arrived in Antalya on Tuesday, said Cops have become greenwashed circuses.