John Kerry just endorsed AOC's plan to spend big on fighting the climate crisis: 'Trillions can clearly — and will need to — be invested'

• US climate envoy John Kerry told Politico that trillions need to be spent to fight the climate crisis.
• He singled out seven countries, including Saudi Arabia and China, that need to do more to cut emissions.

US climate envoy John Kerry just said something a lot closer to the views of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than any other American politician: trillions need to be spent on fighting climate change.

Unlike AOC, though, he wants to ensure every country is playing its part in confronting the challenge.

Kerry spoke to Politico while in Europe this week, where he's strategizing with other leaders on getting countries to reduce their carbon emissions. He said that if the world is to "avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis," seven countries specifically need to do more to meet the challenge: China, Russia, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.

"Trillions can clearly — and will need to — be invested," Kerry said.

"We are working out the details of these different options right now," he added. "We want to be very specific. None of this should be pie in the sky. It needs to be real and economically viable."

This type of funding would come from a range of sources, Kerry told Politico, including philanthropies, partnerships among rich countries, and the private sector to help less wealthy nations that depend on fossil fuels or deforestation.

Since AOC became a member of Congress, she's become a lonely voice calling for spending on a scale previously unthinkable to save the planet from the climate crisis. She spearheaded the Green New Deal in 2019, which laid out goals for a 10-year national mobilization to upgrade US infrastructure, convert to zero-emission energy sources, and remove greenhouse gases and reduce pollution, among other things.

She reintroduced the bill this February with Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, saying during a press conference at the time that "our movement towards a sustainable future has been divided with really just this false notion that we have to choose between our planet and our economy."

As Insider reported, AOC and Markey's 10-year climate initiative did not have a specific price tag, but a cost analysis from the right-leaning American Action Forum estimated the Green New Deal would cost between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over the next decade. In 2019, Ocasio-Cortez did put a number on it, saying the resolution would cost at least $10 trillion.

"I think we really need to get to $10 trillion to have a shot," Ocasio-Cortez told The Hill, adding, "I know it's a ton. I don't think anyone wants to spend that amount of money, it's not a fun number to say, I'm not excited to say we need to spend $10 trillion on climate, but ... it's just the fact of the scenario."

Republicans largely oppose the Green New Deal, particularly due to the amount of money carrying it out would cost. Ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources John Barrasso said in a statement in April that "the green new disaster is back."

"The Green New Deal isn't about protecting the environment. It's about massively increasing the size of government and dictating how Americans live their lives," Barrasso said.

Both parties have historically been in favor of significant annual spending on defense, though, most recently passing a $770 billion national defense bill. The Congressional Budget Office previously estimated Congress will spend $7.3 trillion on defense over the next decade.

Kerry acknowledged the challenges of choosing to spend trillions now on the climate crisis if a Republican takes over the White House in 2024 — especially after President Donald Trump took the US out of the Paris agreement. He told Politico, though, that regardless of who assumes office in three years, he is confident any leader will stick to renewed climate commitments.

"I don't believe any president or any prime minister or any finance minister can stand in the way of what the marketplace is now doing ... I think anybody who's serious knows that these things are happening, these investments are being made, this transition is undertaken," Kerry said. "And I don't believe a politician can turn it around."