30 SEPTEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL technologies. And we will need to unlock trillions of dollars in climate-friendly investment to enable all the above. To accomplish this, and to maintain a leadership position, we need to make sure that we have the requisite directives, talent, training, and tools in place. In terms of directives, they are currently clear. The State Department has heeded President Biden’s call to put climate at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security. Climate is a top priority in Secretary Antony Blinken’s Modernization Agenda, and it is one of the six agency priority goals that we report on quarterly to the American public. Nearly 150 overseas posts now include climate change in their integrated country strategies. For talent and training, beyond SPEC and OES, we have created a new cohort of Foreign Service climate officer positions in regional bureaus and overseas posts, with 20 officers thus far working on climate full time. The Foreign Service Institute is developing an extensive new curriculum to provide officers with the tools they need to engage with counterparts on climate. And we have begun rolling out data and analytical tools that give our officers in Washington, D.C., Author Sue Biniaz discusses final draft language of the multinational agreement emerging from COP21 with then–Secretary of State John Kerry and other advisers in Paris on Dec. 12, 2015. From left: Brian Deese, Biniaz, Kerry, Clare Sierawski, and Melanie Nakagawa. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE and abroad the information they need to advance U.S. climate priorities. Tools may be the most challenging area. Getting the job done, as well as maintaining U.S. leadership, requires that we adequately support countries in their mitigation and adaptation efforts—both bilaterally and through multilateral institutions such as the Green Climate Fund and the multilateral development banks. Their efforts are also in our interest, as they enable the continuation of a livable planet and the avoidance of climate catastrophe. This year, new challenges await. As we work toward COP29 in Baku, we also need to build on the ambitious outcomes of the Dubai COP, including by advancing real-world actions to triple renewable energy, phase down unabated coal power, halt and reverse deforestation, and pursue other elements of the Dubai road map to keeping a 1.5-degree limit on warming within reach. And when we convene in Baku, the parties will have an opportunity to set forth a new collective goal for finance to promote achievement of the goals of the Paris Agreement. There is much at stake, and U.S. leadership will continue to be crucial in the years and decades ahead. n
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