Former secretary of state John Kerry, who recently served as President Joe Biden's special envoy for climate, is attending the lavish wedding of a billionaire oil tycoon in India.
Kerry's attendance at the high-profile event, which is estimated to have cost more than $100 million, is sure to raise eyebrows given his loud efforts combating climate change and advocating for a global transition away from traditional energy sources like oil and gas. In one of his final official acts as Biden's climate czar, for example, he signed the United States onto a United Nations pact requiring the complete phase-out of fossil fuels.
The long-awaited Indian wedding involves Anant Ambani, the son of the nation's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who made much of his fortune from his company Reliance Industries's billion-dollar oil and gas business. The younger Ambani serves on Reliance Industries's board of directors and leads the company's energy business. Mukesh Ambani has an estimated net worth of roughly $120 billion and is number nine on Forbes's list of the richest people in the world.
"John Kerry at your wedding fulfills the traditional adage: his ideas are old, his climate corruption is new, his jet is borrowed from his wife, and listening to him speak will make you blue as you hold your breath knowing that death is preferable to another second of Kerry’s hypocrisy and stupidity," said Daniel Turner, the executive director of U.S. energy advocacy group Power the Future.
As India's single largest private corporation, Reliance Industries is involved in a variety of sectors including telecommunications, mass media, and retail. However, its oil refining, fossil fuel exploration, and petrochemicals business is by far its largest, generating roughly 70 percent of the company's total profit, according to Reliance Industries's most recent financial statements.
Reliance Industries's so-called Jamnagar refinery complex alone processes 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per day, making it the largest refinery in the world and twice the size of the largest U.S. refinery in Galveston, Texas. The company has also expanded its offshore drilling operations in the Indian Ocean, producing trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and tens of millions of barrels of oil.
While Kerry was careful not to publicize his travels to Mumbai—the location of the mega affair—he was captured arriving at the event earlier Friday by the Press Trust of India, one of the nation's mainstream media outlets. Forbes reported earlier that Kerry, alongside an impressive slate of world leaders, celebrities, and business executives, was on the guest list for the wedding.
Washington, D.C., is approximately 8,000 air miles from Mumbai and a flight between the two cities generates an estimated 2,200 pounds of carbon emissions per passenger. A roundtrip flight to the Indian city, therefore, generates the equivalent of more than half of the average person's annual carbon footprint.
In addition to Kerry, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, and World Trade Organization director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala are among the other world leaders who were invited to the ritzy event, according to Forbes.
Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Nick Jonas, John Cena, and Mike Tyson were also reportedly on the guest list, as were Amin Nasser and Murray Auchincloss, the respective CEOs of Aramco and BP, two of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.
Kerry, meanwhile, announced in January that he would step down from his role at the State Department as climate czar, a title he held for three years without Senate confirmation. Shortly after taking office, Biden appointed Kerry to the position, which didn't previously exist, but still earned him a spot on the president's Cabinet and National Security Council.
As climate czar, Kerry, whose office was earmarked millions of dollars in taxpayer funding and hired dozens of unnamed climate-focused officials, represented the United States at high-profile global climate summits and diplomatic engagements in an effort to push a broad climate agenda.
He ultimately departed the position in March to take on a bigger role assisting the Biden-Harris 2024 presidential campaign.
The Biden-Harris campaign and State Department did not respond to requests for comment.