Kerry received the honor for “services to tackling climate change.”
Kerry — who served as a special envoy for climate under President Joe Biden — on Wednesday dismissed President Trump’s ongoing attacks on climate change (in September he called it a “con job”) and green energy initiatives (a “scam”), telling the Globe in an interview from London that “the only hoax is pretending it isn’t happening.”
“Places are getting destroyed by more and more intense storms, people … are wandering the earth to look for a place to live because of extreme heat which is claiming lives,” he said. “The king respects the laws of physics, which are at the foundation [of climate change].”
Kerry has roots in the United Kingdom. His mother, one of 11, lived in Kent and Surrey, and took 4-year-old Kerry with her when she visited for the first time since World War II.
One of his earliest memories was getting lost at the London Zoo with his older sister, he said.
Kerry, 81, is being recognized especially for his work on the environment and climate change, long a policy priority of his in his decades-long political career.
He has often collaborated with the British government, and worked with the king, who has also spearheaded climate initiatives.
Kerry is the first former US secretary of state to receive the honor since Henry Kissinger was appointed a member of the order by Queen Elizabeth II in 1995. The late Ted Kennedy was the most recent former US senator to receive honorary knighthood, doing so in 2009 months before his death.
During his tenure in the Biden administration, Kerry worked on the Sustainable Markets Initiative, a nonprofit sponsored by King Charles III as a “private sector organization for sustainable transition” aimed at encouraging industries to embrace more sustainable practices.
Kerry’s relationship with the king spans decades. When Kerry chaired the Senate’s foreign relations committee, the king — then Prince of Wales — attended a bipartisan dinner at the then-senator’s Washington home, where they talked about climate change and the urgency to put politics aside to work on curbing carbon emissions and building clean energy infrastructure, Kerry said Wednesday.
“King Charles and I share the same point of view — that there’s an urgency to doing things,“ Kerry said Wednesday. ”He’s been ahead of most folks on this from the time I can remember. . . . He always had a commitment to nature.”
It isn’t unusual for US citizens to receive similar honors in England. Queen Elizabeth II, during her tenure, granted 27 Americans honorary knighthoods, including Ralph Lauren in 2019, Angelina Jolie in 2014, and Steven Spielberg in 2001.
Because Kerry isn’t a United Kingdom citizen, he will not be referred to with the title “sir,” as has been the case for British recipients of the award.
Kerry told the Globe on Wednesday that he had been in London for a few days, and planned to stay through the Thanksgiving holiday.
He took his grandchildren on Tuesday to see Chelsea “shred” Barcelona (the Kerry family, for the record, is loyal to Liverpool), and treated them to a West End production of “Hamilton,” the immensely popular musical that follows the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury.
“I figured a little American history in the middle of this might be worthy,” Kerry said. “It’s just really nice to be able to bring my family here in London to share in a moment that perhaps gives the grandkids a little sense of what grandpa has been doing when he’s away all the time.”
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross. Anjali Huynh can be reached at anjali.huynh@globe.com.