Star Metro - US climate envoy locks horns with Republicans ahead of China trip

Kerry, who flies to Beijing for talks on emissions reduction at the weekend, said he had largely used commercial airliners in his work in President Joe Biden's administration and recalled no flights on private aircraft in that time.

Kerry, a former secretary of state who has long been a target of Republicans, appeared irritated by Florida congressman Cory Mills saying he hoped "it wasn't too problematic for your operational team and your private jet to get here."

"I just don't agree with your facts, which began with the presentation of one of the most outrageously persistent lies that I hear, which is this private jet," Kerry told the Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee's oversight panel.

"We don't own a private jet. I don't own a private jet. I personally have never owned a private jet. And obviously it's pretty stupid to talk about coming in a private jet from the State Department up here."

Kerry's critics have slammed his use of a Gulfstream GIV-SP chartered from his wife's company that made 48 trips during the Biden administration, according to Fox News, before it was sold last year.

Fox did not accuse Kerry of using the private plane on official business and his office told the network he travels commercially or by military transport for work.

"He doesn't own one but he sure does use one!" Arizona Republican Andy Biggs tweeted after the hearing, alongside an article reporting that the jet had emitted more than 300 metric tons of carbon.

Scott Perry accused Kerry of wasting resources on man-made climate change, falsely describing global warming as a problem that "doesn't exist."

Kerry asked why the world's scientists and governments would invent the threat and Perry told him: "Because they're grifting, like you are, sir."

The envoy was also forced to defend his negotiations with China amid criticisms of Beijing's human rights record and the Chinese Communist Party's refusal to do more to curb fossil fuel emissions.

Kerry, who leaves Sunday for talks with his counterpart Xie Zhenhua, said China, the world's largest polluter, could not be allowed to stymie progress on the environment.

He was circumspect however on the prospect of being able to persuade the world's number two economy to accept the same curbs as other leading nations.

"Let me just be frank with you -- that's not going to happen in this visit... But the Chinese government understands that this is a growing issue of concern," he said.

The United States and China are the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases as well as some of the world's biggest investors in renewable energy.

Kerry follows in the footsteps of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who last month paid the highest-ranking US visit to Beijing in nearly five years, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen who was in China last week.

N.Fournier--SMC