One of the leading architects of the Paris climate agreement, John Kerry is getting one more chance to lead the fight against climate change after President-elect Joseph R Biden Jr. named the longtime senator and former secretary of state as climate envoy for national security.

This comes in parallel when President Trump’s government on Monday authorized President-elect Biden to begin a formal transition process after Michigan certified Mr. Biden as its winner, a strong sign that the current president’s last-ditch bid to overturn the results of the election was coming to an end.

Mr. Trump however did not concede and vowed to persist with efforts to change the vote, which have so far proved fruitless. But he accepted the decision by Emily W. Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration, to allow a transition to proceed.

Biden’s team gave little immediate detail about how he envisioned Kerry shaping the new job. This profile was dubbed by many on social media and on all sides of the climate-action spectrum as “climate czar.” But the transition team made clear that it will be a prominent role, with Kerry becoming the first member of the National Security Council to focus exclusively on climate change at 76.

It was one of Biden’s first steps in making good on his campaign pledges to confront climate damage from fossil fuel emissions more broadly and forcefully than any previous US administration. And it is a sign of how the incoming administration is heeding warnings that natural disasters from global warming will weaken the US defence and spur conflicts around the globe.

Kerry tweeted, “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is. I am proud to partner with the President-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate movement to take on this crisis as the President’s Climate Envoy.” He had served as former President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017. During that time, he had spearheaded the participation by the United States in the Paris Climate Accords. It must be highlighted that Obama had underscored the indispensability of the issue of climate- change from the matrix of national security. This idea would be taken ahead by Biden administration.

Under the Obama administration, Kerry had played a prominent role in the international effort to craft the Paris Climate Agreement, which commits countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid disastrous storms, heatwaves, flooding, and other looming environmental threats. In the months from January 2017 till October 2020, the former secretary of state has been critical of Donald Trump’s dismantling of climate policies and the decision to remove the US from the Paris agreement. Kerry was also a part of the climate task force the Biden campaign has been using to develop its carbon-cutting policies.

Over the summer, Kerry partnered with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, to lead the Biden campaign’s climate coalition. He also threw his support behind a new financial product that tracks the market for carbon units.

Kerry has the stature to assist him to make deals with foreign governments on worldwide climate efforts. But he is up to a half-century or older than the activists who pushed climate change at the discussion level of national legislative issues over the past four years. Varshini Prakash, the official executive of the Sunrise Movement climate group, whose members skew younger, called the appointment a “very great move,” and said that Kerry combined a long track record on climate issues with a commitment “to engaging and listening to youthful voices.” But Prakash argued that Biden should go further and create a White House Office of Climate Mobilization to push as much climate action from the executive branch as possible.

Justice Democrats, the left-wing group that helped power Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 primary victory, similarly lauded the proposed White House climate office and urged for a stronger focus on domestic climate action. Katie Eder, executive director of the Future Coalition, a youth-led climate advocacy network and a member of Kerry’s bipartisan World War Zero coalition, celebrated Kerry’s appointment as “a great first step.”

The incoming administration’s move comes after four years in which President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord. Trump administration had promoted more drilling of climate-damaging oil and gas and mining of coal, and had steadily dismantled efforts by the Obama administration to rein in fossil-fuel emissions.

Biden has pledged to get the US back into the Paris climate accord. After 2018 midterm elections young progressives like New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez succeeded in pushing climate change towards the front of the U.S. political agenda. Biden in his presidential race had promised a USD 2 trillion plan to overhaul the nation’s transportation and power sectors and buildings to curb fossil fuel emissions.

Kerry was a senator from Massachusetts, a failed Democratic presidential candidate against George W Bush in 2004, and Obama’s second secretary of state from 2013 to 2017. In the Senate, Kerry in 2010, was one of the main authors of one of the biggest legislative pushes to date by the Congress to limit fossil fuel emissions which failed. His former Democratic colleagues in Congress praised his appointment by Biden. He brings diplomatic and political expertise and knows better than anyone how to ensure this crisis receives the international attention it so desperately needs, said, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate, Environment and Public Works Committee.

Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental advocacy group, welcomed the incoming Biden administration’s move on Kerry. Other environmental advocates some of whom want the US to pivot away from all fossil fuels within a few years were more a bit more critical. Wenonah Hauter of Food and Water Action said Kerry’s record was far too tepid on limiting fossil fuels. Hauter said in a statement that Kerry’s proposals are tired ideas from years past that will do little or nothing to address our climate crisis. He also added that because Trump spent four years boosting fossil fuels and blocking solutions, the new administration must prove its commitment to drawing down fossil fuels and treating the crisis with the life-and-death urgency that it deserves.

The US military has warned in a series of reports that climate change is a security threat on many fronts. In a report, US military has stated that the climate issue results direct impacts on US military infrastructure and affects factors, including food and water availability,  that can exacerbate conflicts outside US borders.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness