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NEW DELHI – The tall figure carrying a green Orvis cab was instantly recognizable when he stopped on the jet path after a night flight from the United States.

“Mr. Kerry,” one passenger waved. “Are you here to save the climate?”

Former U.S. senator and secretary of state John Kerry is now a kind of noble traveling salesman for the environment, shuttled from country to country in an urgent move to save the planet.

He visited 14 countries in nine months, some more than once. Commercial flying these days and at 77 years old, the journey is grueling. But President Biden’s special climate ambassador is under increasing pressure.

Just 40 days before leaders from around the world meet in Glasgow, Scotland for a pivotal United Nations climate summit, Mr Kerry must convince other countries to move away sharply from burning and cutting coal, oil and gas this decade . carbon emissions that are warming the planet to dangerous levels.

The selling approach is simple. “We have to do what science tells us to do,” he said.

But his task is huge. Mr. Kerry is trying to reassert American leadership and exemplify Mr. Biden’s claim that “America is back”. That’s a tough proposition, following the stand-alone approach of former President Donald J. Trump, who has questioned the science behind climate change and pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the only withdrawal from 197 countries.

The Allies are openly asking Mr. Kerry whether they can still trust the United States. “Look, come to the next election, you can get Trump back,” said RK Singh, India’s energy minister, the day after meeting with Mr. Kerry. “So what will it be?”

Mr. Kerry’s mandate is further complicated by domestic political rifts and President Biden’s ambitious climate agenda becoming more complex. may not survive a divided Congress.

Republican leaders argue that shifting away from fossil fuels, which has underpinned the American economy for more than a century, puts national security at risk.

“John Kerry has long been a disaster for our country,” said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, a member of the Republican leadership. best republican On the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “There are definitely ways to protect the environment without harming the economy – apparently he doesn’t believe it.”

Mr. Kerry described his decision to return to government as “what the struggle for public life is all about”.

“I believe deeply that this is a major crisis for our world,” he said as he relaxed in his hotel room after a series of meetings with Indian ministers and business leaders. “And this is a moment where we have a chance to do something about it. And at this special moment in time, who could say no to a US president asking you to do that.”

The wind is not behind him.

His trip last week ended without a commitment from India, the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, to increase its climate change goals. He similarly finished off a recent trip to China, the biggest source of emissions, empty-handed. Brazil plans to continue burning coal for the next 30 yearsWhere deforestation is a major contributor to climate change, he skipped a virtual climate meeting held by Mr. Biden last week.

Richard N. Haass, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the signs did not bode well for Kerry’s efforts and for the UN summit in November. “Glasgow will fall short,” he guessed.

Still, Mr. Kerry continues. He plans to meet again with Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate diplomat. According to their staff, it will be the 19th argument between the two men since January.

As part of the Paris agreement, countries agreed to limit the increase in average global temperature to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures. For, to some extent, every fraction of warmingThe world will witness more frequent, more intense and deadly heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods, as well as species extinction.

Moreover, a new analysis released last week The Paris commitment was found by the United Nations to be insufficient; Even if countries keep their promises in 2015, by the end of the century the global average temperature will rise 2.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. “The world is on a disastrous road,” said António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General.

The aim in Glasgow is to force the most polluting countries to take more ambitious actions than those outlined in the Paris agreement.

Mr. Kerry said he believes nations will rise to meet this challenge.

“I am optimistic,” he said. “I think most of the problems in the world are caused by humans. And if we cause them, we should be able to resolve or prevent them.”

In many ways, his career is flourishing so far.

As a Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry attended the first United Nations climate change summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where he declared that the planet could not afford poor countries’ development on the basis of fossil fuels the way richer countries did. .

He defended several environmental efforts in Congress that met with opposition and eventually crumbled, including an effort to raise automobile fuel economy standards in 2002 and a comprehensive climate bill in 2010.

“It’s been a thread that runs through his career, even when politics isn’t favourable,” said former chief of staff David Wade, now a lecturer at Yale University and a faculty member at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Washington-based think tank.

Kerry, who was secretary of state during the Obama administration, said the United States and China could cooperate on climate and said, “You go first. No, you go first,” is the catchphrase that has stopped the action for decades.

That’s why he started secret negotiations, including hosting the Chinese leaders at the Legal Sea Foods restaurant on the Boston Harbor docks. This laid the groundwork for a joint commitment by the United States and China in 2014 to reduce emissions, albeit at different rates. In Paris the following year, countries took the unprecedented step of pledging climate action in their own countries – an agreement that Mr.

Mr. Kerry’s approach to diplomacy is largely the same today: optimistic and grim, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former aides and colleagues.

“She doesn’t believe in going, and that’s her strength as a negotiator. If the door is closed, she looks for an open window,” said Martin Indyk, Mr. Kerry’s former Middle East ambassador.

“He’s truly American,” said Mr. Indyk. “He never faced a problem he believed he couldn’t solve.”

His aides say he focuses on the details by texting his staff late at night to look for a country’s solar capacity statistics or economic data, or with more vague questions, such as Mr Modi’s stated spiritual connection to environmental issues.

When Mr. Trump took office, he trashed two of Mr. Kerry’s signature achievements: the Paris agreement and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

During his brief hiatus from public life, Mr. Kerry founded an interdisciplinary climate program at Yale University, from which he graduated, and launched “World War Zero,” a bipartisan group of world leaders and celebrities to combat climate change.

His friends and colleagues were not surprised when he accepted Mr Biden’s offer to serve as the first presidential climate ambassador in January.

Thomas Vallely, senior adviser for Mainland Southeast Asia at Harvard University’s Ash Center, said retirement was never appropriate for Kerry, who wanted to be in the arena. “It’s like a bullfight. He’s addicted.”

After returning to government, Mr. Kerry said he saw the Trump years hurt America’s credibility, saying he was “chewed and spat out” following Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement.

As a result, Mr. Kerry’s approach is a delicate attempt at trying to understand what countries need rather than making demands. In India, for example, it has announced a partnership that will help the country meet its goal of increasing renewable energy capacity.

It doesn’t even suggest what emissions target should be set by China, the largest emitter, even if that country plans to develop. 247 gigawatts of coal power domestically, that’s about six times the entire coal-fired capacity of Germany. “I don’t want to be in a situation where China reads, ‘Oh, there’s Kerry, telling us what to do’.”

Mr. Kerry and his team of about 35 policy experts have had some success. On Tuesday, President Xi Jinping announced at the United Nations that China would stop financing overseas coal projects, an issue that Mr. Kerry prioritized in his talks with Chinese leaders. Earlier this year, Canada, South Korea and Japan raised their climate targets, largely due to incentives from the United States. And a few management officials are skeptical of President Biden’s announcement on Tuesday. Plans to double help developing countries on climate change It was the result of direct talks with Mr Kerry, who argued that increasing climate finance would be critical to the success of the Glasgow summit.

Mr Kerry insisted he was “hopeful” that the largest economies would take meaningful climate action in Glasgow. Capital is shifting away from fossil fuels and towards new global investments in wind, solar and other renewable energy that don’t emit greenhouse gases, he said. According to the International Energy Agency, about 70 percent of the $530 billion spent on new electricity generation worldwide this year is expected to be invested in renewable energy. Technology is advancing, clean energy costs are falling, and markets are moving.

“You know, everything is a question mark at the moment,” said Mr. Kerry. However, he added, “I think the world is spinning.”

Emily Cochrane contributing reporting.