A global carbon market would be a “helpful” mechanism to encourage investment and drive emissions down, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said.

Lawmakers and industry executives from around the world are debating climate change and how best to tackle it at the government-backed German Energy Transition Dialogue 2021. Saudi Arabia is promoting carbon-capture technology at the two-day virtual conference in Berlin where politicians have repeatedly said hydrogen produced by renewable energy will be crucial to replace fossil fuels.

The Biden administration called for the development of a global carbon market to put the brakes on climate change, despite there being no consenus on the mechanism.

“It would help a great deal if we had a carbon market,” said Kerry, who’s already convened a group of financial experts to explore and potentially “create new financial instruments” that mitigate global warming.

Putting a price on pollution could unleash new investments in clean technologies and accelerate the transition from greenhouse-gas emitting fuels. Carbon permit prices climbed to a record in European markets even as electricity demand remained muted because of Covid-19 lockdowns, a signal that investors increasingly see emission offsets as an asset class.

“We have to push more green financing,” Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said. While “the EU has been the world frontrunner” when it comes to issuing green bonds “it’s important to mobilize the private sector, banks and other financial institutions” by cutting red tape, he said.

Kerry said he wanted to gather the 20 largest emitting countries later this year when they meet in Glasgow, Scotland, to discuss their climate pledges. “We need transparency and accountability to then follow that,” he said.

Halve Emissions
U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief climate envoy, John Kerry, called for an international strategy that galvanizes action on climate change. “We’re in a decisive decade for climate action,” he said.

To meet the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, the world needs to halve emissions by 2030, the former Secretary of State said.

Biden is due to present the U.S.’s 2030 climate targets at a summit he’s convening on April 22, and Kerry said the world was still on track for warming on 3.7 degrees Celsius. “We are in a decade of vision and the decisions we make right now” are going to truly write the future, he said.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.