Fact Check: John Kerry quote on ‘sacrificing’ billions of people to save Earth is false

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for the Climate John Kerry did not say that “billions of humans” must be “sacrificed” in order to “save the planet,” despite a screenshot shared online containing the fake quote attributed to Kerry.

The claim stems from a headline published by The People’s Voice on Oct. 22 that reads: “John Kerry: ‘We Must Sacrifice Billions Of People To Save Planet Earth.’”

One user shared the screenshot of the headline on Instagram with a caption that reads: “President Biden’s unelected ‘Climate Czar’ John Kerry has declared that billions of human beings must be sacrificed in order to save planet Earth from imminent destruction.”

The article refers to an address (timestamp:28.00s to 1.00.04s) made by Kerry on Aug. 24 at the Scottish Global Dialogue conference.

However, in a livestream of the address uploaded on Aug. 24, Kerry made no such comment, nor is there any related remark documented in a transcript of the address published by the U.S. Department of State.

The People’s Voice article refers to several comments made by Kerry critical of those who undermine the severity of climate change. Nowhere in the body of the article does the publication provide evidence that Kerry called for “billions of people” to be “sacrificed.”

The article claims that Kerry “underscored his globalist anti-human agenda” by saying that “humanity is inexorably threatened by humanity itself.”

This remark was made in context of criticizing groups who undermine climate science and the threat posed by climate change – not calling for people to be “sacrificed.”

During the address, Kerry says (34:00s): “All because some extremist political voices, holdout nations, and vastly vested interests have declared war on facts and science. All because they distort for political and personal gain what science and common sense dictate we humans must do in order to put our house in order.”

Several sentences on, he says (35:25s): “They compound the already difficult challenge of the climate crisis by promising to do more of exactly what created this crisis in the first place. So now, humanity is inexorably threatened by humanity itself—by those seducing people into buying into a completely fictitious alternative reality where we don’t need to act and we don’t even need to care.”

Reuters previously addressed a similar false claim made by The People’s Voice that Kerry called for “depopulation” during the same address.

Reuters did not find any credible reports that Kerry made a remark calling for billions of people to be sacrificed.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said to Reuters in an email on Oct. 30 that the claim is “obviously false.”

The People’s Voice responded by email to Reuters with a “poop” emoji.

False. Kerry did not say that “billions of humans” should be “sacrificed” to save the Earth at a conference in Scotland in August.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.

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