Former secretary of state John Kerry on Tuesday called for organizing nations to fight against climate change as if it were World War II.
"The fact is that we are so far behind that you need now to organize nations almost as if we were at war," Kerry told CNN anchors Jim Sciutto and Poppy Harlow.
"You've got to start to make a set of decisions that are really enormous, not unlike decisions that were made in the course of World War II to make sure we could win the war," he added. "We're not doing that today."
Kerry also blasted the Trump administration for not making difficult decisions to combat climate change.
"There are a whole set of interlocking decisions, none of which are being made by the United States at a large, national level because we have a president who says that climate change is a Chinese hoax," Kerry said, alluding to a 2012 tweet from Trump. "The result of the American presidency moving out of the position of leadership that President Obama and the administration gave it is that other nations that want to be slower and laggard about it are doing so."
Kerry appeared on CNN's Newsroom to discuss his new climate change initiative "World War Zero." The group launched this week with the support of a set of lawmakers and celebrities including Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor and movie star best known for his role as Mr. Freeze in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin.
Kerry also compared climate change to World War II in his announcement of the creation of "World War Zero," according to the Verge. Kerry claimed that the initiative is intended to bring back the "spirit of unity, common purpose, and urgency" of the World War II era.
Despite Kerry's sense of urgency, a recent poll found voters prioritize several other issues over climate change. The economy, health care, national security, gun policy, and seniors' issues all ranked ahead of it, with climate change tying with immigration for sixth place.