John Kerry is in the Vatican, where he gave a keynote speech at a closed-door meeting of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences and the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences on May 14. He met the Pope today—see next report.
Kerry’s speech was not available, but the “concept note” for the meeting was titled “Dreaming of a Better Restart,” and described “the current crisis and global state of confusion” as the result of “the globalism of selfishness, exclusion and the throwaway culture.” Our wastefulness is the cause of the global crisis…
The panel Kerry addressed was titled “Fair Energy and Food System Transformation,” which the academies said would include a discussion about how “to mobilize public and private sector finance to drive the net-zero transition and to help vulnerable countries cope with climate impacts on their people’s health.”
Also speaking at the forum were Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Yellen’s speech was released by the Treasury. Beside her normal pledge to cut off credit to fossil fuels and productive enterprise, she said: “We are working with G20 nations to agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom. Together we can use a global minimum tax to make sure the global economy thrives based on a more level playing field in the taxation of multinational corporations, and spurs innovation, growth and prosperity.” One more sovereign right of sovereign nations is going down the imperial hole.
Kerry was traveling to Rome, London and Berlin, May 13-19 to discuss ways to “ramp up action to stem climate change even before world leaders meet in Glasgow, Scotland, in November for COP26,” reported the Catholic News Service.
